


Bum Slapping 101

by Dickaster, girlskylark



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, BUBBLE TEA MENTIONS, Bartenders, Beach Volleyball, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gay Keith (Voltron), HARDCORE Lance pining, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith and Shiro are Siblings, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt is Savage, Pining Lance (Voltron), Sassy Pidge | Katie Holt, Slow Burn, Tattoos, Unofficial Rivals, Volleyball, Volleyball Dorks & Nerds, bubble tea, teammates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-03-09 01:44:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 78,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13471059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dickaster/pseuds/Dickaster, https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlskylark/pseuds/girlskylark
Summary: Lance is only alittleobsessed with Allura, which starts the cascading events of joining a beach volleyball tournament, getting demolished by the pro duo Shiro and Keith, and being abandoned when Allura swoons into Shiro's arm like one of those sassy erotica novel covers. To top it off, Keith's on the hunt for a new partner when Shiro ditches him for his new Leading Lady, and Lancemayor may not be falling into another pit of pining goo—so of course he accepts the offer to team up with Keith.In the process of Keith and Shiro moving to San Diego—Lance, Allura, Hunk, and Pidge's official stomping grounds—Pidge forces Lance to bum around with them to the tattoo parlor Keith now works at. The realization prompts Lance into accidentally agreeing to get a tattoo, mainly because it means sitting and talking to Keith for hours.Ah, the things we do for love.





	1. making friends: a learning curve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [MARCI](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/) AND I WERE PICKING UP SMOOTH ROCKS BY THE LAKE WHEN I PITCHED THIS IDEA TO HER AND WE BOTH LOST OUR MINDS FOR A LIL WHILE and then we gave up BUT THEN I WENT BACK TO WRITING !! so here it is.

**a u g u s t 2 0 1 7**

It felt like Lance blinked without blinking. The world went dark, and in the next moment, that aching, dizzying sensation was due to the fact that he was suddenly flat on the ground. Above him there were figures silhouetted in godly light shining down from the Heavens. It was so blinding that he squinted and said, “Shit why is the sun so bright…? Wha happened—?”

His head felt like a magnet was heaving through the back of his skull when he tried to sit up. Someone pushed him down by the shoulders and said, “Lay down. You hit your head pretty hard.”

“Shiro—?”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to hit him _that_ hard,” a familiar voice said. _Keith_. Wait—hit _him_? What reason would Keith have for hitting…

Oh.

Well, this is rather embarrassing, he had to admit.

 

* * *

**o c t o b e r 2 0 1 5**

It’s difficult to pinpoint where, exactly, Lance went wrong. It’s easy to blame it all on _Keith_ because everything happened because of _Keith_. But who could he blame for meeting the guy in the first place? Pidge, probably.

And who could he blame for meeting Pidge? Allura, probably.

Before then he really had nothing else to blame aside from fun, recreational volleyball where he found himself oozing over the sight of Allura in Spandex shorts at the gym, killing it on the court. He never seriously considered volleyball as, like, a legitimate _sport_ until he saw _that ass_ diving for balls, or braced under the charged silence of her opponent preparing to serve across the net. 

He was a freshmen in college at the time—when everyone and their mother insisted you try out anything and everything. Go to all the university sport matches, go to all the clubs, the parties… So Lance found himself at the gym more often than not when he had free time. That was all fun and great and happened to be where he met Hunk—his current best friend as far as he could consider _anyone_ to be that close to him. It seemed college was either a place of constant socializing, or an island where he had to reach out to make friends considering he was roommate-less. 

Sure, his floor buddies were fine and all, but really, they weren’t exactly “up his alley” in terms of hobbies. As much as Lance loved a good party, he couldn’t be bothered to go out on Thirsty Thursdays, or every _goddamn weekend_. After spending so much time in his dorm on the weekends, he grew fed up with their antics those nights. He’d lie awake furiously at two AM listening to Chance The Rapper blasting through the paper-thin dorm room walls, and loathe his neighbors all the more because of it.

So dorm life wasn’t the greatest, so he wasn’t in the dorm a whole lot as it was.

“If you want you could hang at my place?” Hunk suggested one time as Lance vented (yet again) while spotting Hunk on the bench press.

“Seriously? I mean, that’d be awesome, but you’re, like, on the other side of campus,” Lance confessed. “And shouldn’t I be _enjoying_ the single life in a room all to myself?”

“From what I hear, you’re used to sharing a room,” Hunk huffed out, pushing the bar back onto its hanger. He ducked out from under it and sat facing Lance. “Sorry man, but… you’re just not used to being on your own it sounds like.”

Lance refused to blush under the comment. For whatever reason, being independent sounded like an _accomplishment_ to him, but… he hated it. He hated to admit to Hunk that he literally called his Ma every damn night, or that he more often than not felt terrified of the tense, silent darkness alone in his dorm room. He thought it’d be a breath of relief to have a room to himself, but the price of a single room wasn’t worth the anxiety of being alone, it seemed. 

“Maybe I just need to get a girlfriend or something,” Lance mumbled to himself. 

Hunk rubbed a hand under his chin and shrugged. “I dunno. I mean, I always have my girlfriend over ‘cause she hates her roommate,” he confessed. Lance was quietly jealous of Hunk—the man was a year above him in the apartments already. He’d visited several times before on the weekends to play _Battlefield_ , and so Lance already met Hunk’s girlfriend Shay. 

“But I _like_ having my own room. I hated sharing with a roommate,” Hunk continued. “Not exactly the same situation, but…”

“But you must like having Shay over, right?”

“Yeah, because I guess I get the option of saying ‘no’. You can’t exactly say ‘no’ to a roommate. Well—unless you’re a shit roommate,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Last year my roommate would kick me out if he had a girl over.”

“Yeah, no, not fun.”

“Agreed.”

Lance sighed, and leant over the bars to frown at Hunk. “Where do I find a girlfriend? Where’d you meet Shay?”

“The volleyball courts downstairs.”

After Lance demanded Hunk show him, they wandered down together where they could watch (among several other bystanders, mainly guys) from the other side of an entire wall of windows. The university girl’s team was at practice, and it was probably the first time Lance ever heard a spike echo like thunder against the walls. Even through the glass it gave the same sensation the bass did on speakers close to his chest. It was more thrilling than a swimmer’s buzzer when he realized that such an effect was capable of being conducted by a human’s palm spiking a ball with such force as to shake the insides of Lance’s ribcage.

And he fell in love with the harsh quickness of volleyball before he ever saw Allura’s pert ass on the court. It was nothing like the languid swim routines he was used to.

She was a senior when Lance was a freshmen, and she stuck around to co-coach-slash-manage the team. She was the sort of girl who both intimidated and inspired Lance with her impressive physique and strict voice. She could shout “ _Give me twenty!_ ” in that coach-voice of her’s _anytime_ and he’d be on the floor in a heartbeat. She prowled the sideline, aggressively calling out to each player rushing up to the net. 

Lance first saw her after watching an impressive spike drill into the far corner of the court. He looked to see who the spiker was, and instead saw Allura standing beyond her, eyes on the next player, clapping her hands encouragingly.

“So Shay’s on the team?” Lance asked, and Hunk snorted.

“Fuck no. She hates competing. She just plays on the recreational team—mostly as a cheerleader of sorts,” he explained. “It’s just fun watching the official team do their stuff. They’re good, aren’t they?”

Lance’s gaze drifted up and down Allura’s short Spandex shorts, and that tight-fitted Nike tank top with mesh sides. And that _hot pink sports bra_ …

“Hell yeah they are,” he breathed, already half-gone. 

Hunk no doubt followed Lance’s gaze and gave an amused laugh. “That’s their co-coach, Allura. She’s a senior, and she messed up her knee or something so she’s out for the season. She’s kind of the manager of the team now—Shay knows her.”

“Wait, really?” Lance blurted out, attention temporarily drawn to Hunk.

“Yeah, she plays on the rec team for fun. She doesn’t go _all out_ because that wouldn’t be fair, but…”

“I’ve gotta meet her. What’s the rec team all about?” he demanded, practically clutching at Hunk’s shirt, clawing for answers.

The recreational team didn’t meet up until that weekend, so Lance had to wait through three _painful_ days after meeting Allura— _wait_ , meeting _Allura_ for the first time. That was an experience in and of itself. Lance had badgered Hunk to stay until the university team ended practice, and then they waited around the end of the locker room hall as Hunk murmured, “I mean, I’ve _met her_ before and she and Shay hang out but I wouldn’t consider us _friends_ —she might think it’s weird that—”

“Oh, hey Hunk!” one of the exiting girls said, hair damp from the showers and pulled back into a messy bun. Several other girls followed after, all buff, big calves and _powerful thighs_. Lance wished every last one of them would crush him with their thighs that couldn’t fit into jeans so they just wore athletic leggings. They all chirped, “Hunk!” “Buddy, how you doing?!” “How’s Shay?” “Hunk, my _man!_ ”

Lance gained secondary praise just from being associated with Hunk. He beamed like a puppy begging for treats, and accepted high-fives along the line of volleyball girls heading out of the gym. At the end of them was Allura, who Hunk stopped frantically.

“Allura! Hang on, I wanna introduce you to someone,” he called out, and seemed startled when Allura gasped at the sight of him, and reeled him into a bone-crushing hug.

“ _Hunk_! My beautiful teddy bear!” she cooed, shaking him back and forth. It looked kind of like Hunk couldn’t breathe. Lance was starstruck being so close up to Allura, and to _hear that accent_. _This_ was the woman wearing a hot pink sports bra on the court, shouting orders and making Lance weak at the knees. 

So maybe she _was_ a senior while he was a freshmen. Lance didn’t fucking care _one bit._

“ _Allura_ …” Hunk whined, unable to escape until she finally released him, clapping a hand _hard_ on his back. He coughed a little. “Um, so _this_ is Lance. He’s interested in the rec team.”

“Really?” Allura said, eyebrows up as she surveyed him and asked, “So do you play volleyball?”

“Uh, no. Just sort of getting into it,” he confessed weakly. 

That was probably where everything went wrong because he couldn’t admit that it was all because he fell head-over-heels for a woman like Allura.

 

* * *

**n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 5**

It was _kind of_ a mistake for him to say he was interested in recreational volleyball because A) Lance had never played volleyball before, B) he completely underestimated the sport, and C) he was _competitive as fuck_. So naturally, recreational would turn into a competitive sport in _no time_.

At the time he figured it’d be worth the hassle to learn so long as Allura was the one shouting the orders, which was exactly what happened. That weekend Shay came to walk Lance to the open courts where they met with her recreational team. It was colder out those days so it required that they separate to the locker rooms before reemerging into the gym. Voices echoed across the walls, and the general buzz of socializing never ceased to spike Lance’s excitement.

Volleyball was much like swimming in that everyone got to know each other, and everyone was invested in the others’ progress. Only, volleyball was a team sport and he appreciated the proximity in which they stood as one in parts of six across the court. When Lance joined, they all started from square one so he could learn the simple math of actually _hitting_ the ball.

The first time he punched the ball over the net (which _worked_ , mind him) Allura called the play off and grabbed Lance by the shoulders, shaking him as she yelled, “ _We never do the douchebag volleyball-punch! We never do the douchebag volleyball-punch!_ ”

“What? I got it over the net, didn’t I?” Lance blurted out, but apparently that was a major no-no in the art of Allura’s volleyball league.

She couldn’t play, but despite doctor’s orders, she drilled with them. She’d spike the balls _ruthlessly_ at Lance, and when he saw everyone catching them so easily, he felt compelled to _win_. He _needed_ to catch up because internally, he _had to_. It wasn’t a matter of winning Allura over anymore—he realized quickly, shockingly quick, that she saw everyone as a sibling of hers, nothing more. She’d clap them all on the back after a good play, and to the girls, she’d slap their bums and every time without fail Lance clung to his heart and pretended to choke on the sheer beauty of it. She whistled at him (the woman didn’t even need an _actual_ whistle) and shout, “Eyes on the ball, Lance!”

After spending so much time after practice with Allura, he learned to be more ballsy, so to speak. He’d ask if she was doing anything later, to which she replied, “Why, you want a drink?” 

He hadn’t yet realized that athletes, regardless of their partying habits, did _not_ drink alcohol. So when he agreed, he hadn’t expected her to take him to a late-night coffee house where they sat at the bar stools at the window. At this point, he still thought he had a chance with Allura.

He didn’t.

She drank a regular coffee—no sugar, cream, _nothing_ —because she had an essay due and a presentation to prepare for that night. It was already dark out. 

“Why do you play rec on off-seasons when you have so much homework to catch up on? Couldn’t you just skip?”

“Theoretically, yes. But will I? No. What can I say? I love hanging out with you guys. And… quite honestly being alone in my apartment kind of freaks me out,” she confessed, and before Lance could even make a snarky comment, he was reminded that this was almost the _exact_ reason he wanted a girlfriend. He didn’t want to be alone in his dorm.

“Well…” he started, forcing down immature comments about _You can have me over…_ any _time_ chanting in his head. “If you ever need a study-buddy, I wouldn’t mind hanging out with you. My sleep schedule’s kind of weird now because my neighbors keep me up.”

“Oh,” she commented. “ _Oh_. I forget you live in the dorms. You’re still a freshmen.”

“Yeah.”

“Kinda sucks that that’s a requirement, huh? Well. I can’t say either of us are prepared to hang out tonight, but… maybe after next practice if you want to hang out? I’m sure I’ll still have a shitload of work to do anyway.”

“I’ve been wondering what all your majors are, in the university girl’s team. Because I heard a lot of stereotypes about student athletes taking easy majors so they can focus on sports more,” Lance asked, hoping he didn’t sound ignorant because of it. He figured the best place to learn would be from Allura.

So he learned that she was in business—a difficult college to get into at their university. In high school she had to score pretty high on any of her tests if she even _planned_ on getting into their university at the first go—which she did. She sipped idly at her coffee as she explained, hair dipping over her shoulder, that she wanted to own her own company one day. Maybe fashion, maybe not. She wasn’t sure. 

“All I know is that I really like this area. I wouldn’t mind staying here,” she admitted.

 

* * *

**m a y   2 0 1 6**

And that was exactly what she did—except, not until after she thoroughly hooked Lance on the art of volleyball. They’d watch professional matches together, and Lance was suddenly surrounded by beautiful, _beautiful_ buff girls every weekend because that happened to be the sort of gang Allura hung around—the university girl’s team. They suddenly greeted Lance like they had Hunk, and after realizing that Lance was Allura’s volleyball-charity-case, they spun their free time together into Destroying Lance Time. In other words, they worked him to the bone, starting from the ground up as if he were suddenly training to become The Best Of The Best. 

Secretly, though, Lance _loved the idea_. He fell in love with it just like he had winning gold in high school for swimming matches.

Hunk kept Lance on track though, even if they weren’t gym buddies any longer. Freshmen year became tolerable because of the volleyball girls, and Hunk’s constant assistance with homework. Many of The Girls lacked the concentration Lance required to stay grounded during studying, while others were in such difficult majors that Lance couldn’t comprehend what they were saying, let alone _help them study_. 

They all—Lance, Hunk, Shay, and Allura included—took to calling the university volleyball team The Girls. They weren’t the rec team, because it wasn’t limited to “girls”, but they were something else entirely. Lance had never _seen_ a group of individuals so thoroughly woven together as they were. Their instincts paired with one another on the court. They were invested in each others’ lives. They had constant contact throughout the day in a group chat Allura dubbed The Girls in honor of Lance first calling them that. 

Unfortunately, though, Lance wasn’t a part of The Girls. He almost wished he was, after spending so much time with them only to realize that he wouldn’t be invited to stay at such-and-such a cabin up north. He wouldn’t be invited to slumber parties over the summer break. He wouldn’t be invited to outings in the summer, or to camping or anything of the sort because they were “for The Girls—we can’t invite you along, sorry Lance. All our schedules are just synched up because of the summer season. Coach wants us to all be together over the summer.”

“That’s fine,” he confessed, but it wasn’t. “What do you guys do in the summer season?” 

Allura glanced at the others and shrugged, saying, “Well, since I’m out of my brace now, and I’m done with recovery, I’ll be in the beach volleyball league. I do singles every year.”

“What’s that?” he asked, pouting against the couch cushions. “Would I be able to play?”

“It’s the women’s league,” one of them said. “You can’t—”

“There’s a mixed-gender league,” she said, perking up, only to glare at several of them. “ _Which_ , I know several of you are doing with your boyfriends.” The accused blushed. “It’s doubles beach volleyball, and your team can be whoever you like. I’ve done it before in high school with a few of the other girls.

“We should try it out together, Lance,” Allura insisted, pinching his knee. “It’ll be fun! And you can keep practicing. You could go into a co-op competitive team next fall or something!”

He considered competitive leagues across the city, but they never really interested him as much as The Girls inspired him to play.

One of them pulled out a computer and Allura retracted her name from the singles roster and signed up for doubles with Lance McClain alongside her. From that point on, he was taught doubles beach volleyball.

 

* * *

  **j u l y   2 0 1 6**

Lance loved the beach. He spent his summers there _constantly_ —not necessarily out of his own will, but because it was his job. All through high school he stood guard at public swimming pools and eventually found himself recommended a position as lifeguard during the morning shift. Normally it was at incredibly crowded, popular beaches for college students, and the water on the West Coast was always too cold where he came from for anyone to ever actually set _foot_ in the water. 

The temperature of the water was unseemly, but it didn’t stop men and women from donning bodysuits and hiking their surfboards over their heads. Those tended to be the people he watched from afar and fretted over—not so much the children who found their fun being chased by the waves rather than being _in_ them. 

He’d get ridiculous farmers’ tans that his siblings teased him about, but he always ended up being darker-skinned than them after the summer was over—even considering the lighter side of his farmer’s tan. He’d always been quick to tan, but he never considered how swiftly he turned dark spending _hours_ out in the sand with Allura, Hunk, and Shay.

Hunk decided to take a stab at beach volleyball, but both he and Shay quickly found it difficult to cooperate with one another. That season nearly broke their relationship due to Shay’s never-ending competitiveness in volleyball—which took a _lot_ to get through to. It surprised them all that Shay’s fuse became so short that summer, and her patience thinned with Hunk. 

“My serves suck—Shay hates it, I can tell,” Hunk confessed dully after a practice match on Lance’s beach. The regular swimmers there recognized Lance even off-duty, and as they chatted together, he waved to several of the regulars down the beach. 

“Yeah she’s kinda been a bitch to you, no offense,” Lance confessed, turning his attention back to Hunk, who only deflated more. “But I mean, when you two _aren’t_ playing volleyball together, you’re, like, _goals_ or something. I think it’s just when y’all play volleyball together, honestly.”

“You’re probably right… but we still have a month of summer left and I don’t want to ruin it just because I’m crap at serving and we have no coordination on the court together,” Hunk admitted. “I kind of wish I would have started when you did. You and Allura _kill it_ out there.”

“You think?” Lance was thrilled to hear it. First semester had Hunk said that, Lance would have been thrilled because of their prospect of working together as a _couple_. But now he saw them as a team more so than a relationship. 

“ _Yeah_ , Lance,” Hunk insisted. “Ever since that first practice you two had playing doubles, I figured you two would make it farther in the tournament than Shay and I would. Are you ready for it?”

The tournaments in that last month of the summer would be Lance’s first _real_ competition in volleyball. Sure, they had scrimmages, but nothing where _fame_ was on the line. The thrill of it was almost too much for him to bear. All through the nights he stayed up smiling at the prospect of winning with _Allura_. She was _famous_ at the university for her skills. He’d be on a two-person team with a _legend_.

All through work he sat up on his high perch, watching people play volleyball in the sand and thinking about how great it would be to be down there now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A collab by [llstarcasterll](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/) & [girlskylark](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/) :) Hit us up on Tumblr!
> 
> MARCI MADE THIS DRAWING FOR THE LADS AND THEIR VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT GEAR IN THE NEXT CHAPTER. Go follow her she's amazing and she arts sometimes and has this weird obsession with guinea pigs so if that sounds like your cup of tea THEN MOSEY ON OVER TO HER TUMBLR.  
> 


	2. spike through the heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allura and Shiro learn the art of smack-talking while also flirting. Lance meets Keith.

* * *

  **j u l y 2 0 1 6**

Shiro was, as everyone knew, a beach volleyball myth. Lance hadn’t seen him around, recognized him, or even _played against him_ , but according to The Girls, Shiro was honest to God _worshipped_.

For all their lack of desires hanging around guys, The Girls would lay down every last prayer to Shiro. Evidently he went to a competing university, and avidly followed both the male and female teams around the state. So every now and then The Girls caught a glimpse of him on the opposing side, cheering on guys and girls, and if they were lucky, they snuck into some of the male volleyball matches just to see Shiro’s jump serves.

“They’re _flawless_ ,” Allura said, fanning herself on the beach the day they found Shirogane on the roster of doubles. “There’s no spin.”

“What does that mean?” Lance asked.

“No spin means that the ball practically wiggles in the air as it comes at you. You have no clue where it’s going to land,” Shay explained.

“Isn’t that bad?”

“Well, for us, _yeah_ ,” she scoffed. “But for him, he knows right where they’re going. He could aim an inch in front of the back corner lines and the ball would be there in .2 seconds flat.”

“We watched one of his meets on TV,” Hunk said. “She’s not kidding. His serves could _kill_.”

“Wow.” Lance was terrified. He just learned how to play less than a year ago—how was he supposed to even _consider_ landing a hit on a serve like that when he hadn’t even known it was possible?

Allura could see his concern from where he sat letting the ocean tug at his swim shorts. She leaned over and patted him on the knee. “Don’t worry about his serves. I’ve got us covered, remember? You just set up my spikes.”

They’d made a pact of sorts. Lance was all around pretty average, which meant his sets were decent. Allura could turn them into something magnificent, though. She so much as jumped in the air, and their competitors would be shaking in the sand. All he had to do was set whatever save Allura sent his way.

He could do this.

When they finally got off their asses to get a drink at the smoothie bar, Allura smacked his butt and brushed off the sand. “Gotta make sure you look cute,” she told him as he squeaked and slapped his hands over his cheeks to hide his blush. “Also, you’re so _adorable_! Any sophomore would be happy to see that cute smile.”

“ _Allura_ …” he groaned. 

Hunk and Shay giggled to themselves hearing Allura tease as she always did with Lance and The Girls. The amount of times Lance caught her flirting with The Girls was obscene—but all The Girls did that. It just seemed to be the way they functioned, much like his swim teammates did in high school. However, being in college gave them the perk of saying whatever the fuck they wanted. He wouldn’t _dare_ repeat some of the pickup lines The Girls came up with for one another.

Or, maybe he would. But that’d be for another, more embarrassing time.

 

* * *

  **a u g u s t2 0 1 6**

The first time Lance even _saw_ Shiro was before the tournaments started, when the man randomly visited the beach where the matches would be hosted. He was there suddenly, and Lance had to do a double take from his lifeguard stand to fully comprehend the iconic streak of white hair he’d seen on television. The man was _stunning_ and made Lance momentarily reconsider all of his life choices and think, “Whoa, I’m gay.”

Shiro was, perhaps, the most flawless human specimen Lance ever came in contact with, and just so happened to swoop in at the wrong time because a second later Lance was startled by the first panicked shriek of the summer coming from down the beach.

Pretty much everyone’s heads turned despite the fact that you couldn’t even _see the sand_ because there were so many visitors at the beach that day. Lance practically leapt from the fifth step of his lifeguard stand without hesitation, the stunning visage of Shiro lapsed by the panic of a mother screaming for her child in the wake.

Since it _was_ later in the summer, the water warmed up and made for more dangerous waters where children strayed during high tide. Lance sprinted to the edge of the water and was there before the neighboring lifeguard arrived. He spotted a head of blonde hair above the white tips, arms grasping in the water before diving in and past the initial tides. 

His heart was racing. 

He hated this. 

He hated that being a lifeguard had to be a thing because people were stupid, children were small, and the ocean was ruthless. He’d done shit like this before, but it never ceased to terrify him as he grabbed the writhing child around the waist and hoisted them to the surface as a wave crashed over the both of them. He could feel the kid coughing against his bare chest, and sputtering tears as they resurfaced again, closer to shore.

It wasn’t until Lance was half-out of the water that he realized how cold it was. Nothing seemed to have existed seconds ago when the child was drowning, because suddenly Lance was in and out, and the mother came racing through the water to them. He could feel his chest gaining heat where it ached to breathe from the adrenaline rush and swimming.

“Thank you so much, thank you, thank you,” the mother cried out as they emerged from the water. She had her kid clinging to her hip as she reached out to Lance and dragged him into a hug. He was more or less dazed, as he always was whenever something like this happened.

“It’s not a problem,” he assured her, not realizing that he was experiencing his first time near Keith.

Lance hadn’t known it at the time, but Keith accompanied Shiro to the beach. He just wasn’t as recognizable as Shiro, or on television at all for that matter. Later, Lance would remember Keith asking him, “So you’re a lifeguard?” and Lance sputtered up whatever beverage he was drinking (probably apple juice) and exclaim, indignantly, “What gave you _that impression?_ Do I seem like the live saving type because I look like a Marvel superhero?” With that, he would shoot Keith finger guns and get slapped in the back of the head for it.

So Lance was blissfully unaware of Keith at the time his coworker wrapped a towel around the little girl’s shoulders and asked her the general questions they were required to. They’d have to report the incident to their supervisor, which Lance wasn’t entirely looking forward to, but at least everything turned out all right. CPR wasn’t necessary, so he considered that an excellent save as it was. 

Lance took the girl by the hand and with the mom at his side, he treated her to an ice cream at the beach concessions stand. “That’s very kind of you,” the mom said.

“Yeah, well, if I almost drowned I’d want an ice cream or something,” Lance laughed, and waved to the guy behind the counter. He looked down at the girl. “Which one do you want? It’s on us.”

“The SpongeBob one,” she said, nose still red from crying and eyes red from the salt and the tears.

“Coming right up,” the guy said with a grin, and produced a popsicle wrapped in plastic for her to tear into. 

He went back to work and lost track of Shiro, much to his disappointment. Ever since that day, whenever the little girl visited the beach, she tended to hunt down Lance’s stand and swim closest to it. He didn’t blame her—drowning was perhaps one of his biggest fears. Drowning was a reminder of just how impossibly powerful the ocean was, and what a force it was as well. It was easy for him to go off on this train of thought on an average day, and he and the other lifeguards often joked through their walkie talkies about how they were the Defenders of Land-Goers from the Water Beasts or whatever the fuck came to mind. 

After a usual morning, some of The Girls showed up at the beach around noon, which meant that he hurriedly flocked them over to share the news. 

“So apparently Shiro’s here? But I have no clue where he went.”

“How could you not know!” one of them shrieked as the rest of them exploded into a flurry of girlish shrieks of excitement. “You have the highest vantage point here!”

He shrugged helplessly. “I had work to do and then he disappeared!”

They went into full-on panic mode hunting down Shiro on the beach. He hoped it wouldn’t be too bizarre for the guy—he _did_ know The Girls somewhat just from tournaments, but still… That didn’t mean Shiro wasn’t startled to find himself surrounded by buff women, hands on their hips as they crooned, “ _Shirooo_ … You never told us you were coming today…”

Lance watched from afar as they converged on Shiro, and left Shiro’s beach towel empty. He slapped a hand over his face and dragged it down when he realized they were _literally_ carrying Shiro over to his lifeguard stand. “I’m at _work_ you can’t— _and_ of course you aren’t going to listen to me,” he sighed as they deposited Shiro at the base of the lifeguard stand.

“We need rope,” one of them said.

“Whoa, hey, we aren’t tying people up now are we?” Shiro said, and Lance had never heard the man’s voice before, but _damn_ … it sounded like music to his ears.

“I just have the lifesaver, and that’s attached to a rope,” Lance blurted out, but logic told him to snatch it up before one of The Girls could get at it. “But this is for _work_. Not tying innocent volleyball players up.”

The Girls pouted as they distractedly held Shiro down so he couldn’t stand up. “But _Laaance_ ,” they whined. 

In the end he didn’t even have to deal with their shenanigans because he heard that familiar coach voice bellowing from down the beach, “ _Hey!_ I heard you girls kidnapped someone!” All The Girls froze, and yelped when they saw Allura making a rapid beeline for Lance’s lifeguard post. He tried to act innocent so that his supervisor wouldn’t think he was socializing on the job.

She stormed up, and The Girls parted instinctively. “Sorry, Allura,” one of them all but squeaked, but Allura bopped them each on the head before finally making it to Shiro. She reached down, grabbed him forcefully by the arm, and yanked him to his feet. He hardly needed to move a muscle, and Lance figured that was for the better because he wasn’t sure the man’s legs were working properly after seeing Allura in her (sexy) rage. 

“There will be no kidnapping of any sorts today,” she snapped at them and turned to Shiro, flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry about my team. They’ve always admired you on the court.”

The Girls were winking and waving seductively from behind Allura until she whipped around to glare at them—at that point, they were all perfect, smiling angels. When she turned back to Shiro, only Lance could see from his vantage point the fact that the back of Shiro’s neck was red, as were the tips of his ears (and it wasn’t from the sun). 

“Well, that’s far better than hating me,” Shiro confessed. “And… I hope that you agree with the rest of your team. In that case I’m flattered.”

Lance’s jaw dropped because sure, he flirted with Allura before, but he _never_ got that reaction. Allura’s mouth fell open, and as her eyebrows rose, Lance _knew_ she was impressed. She gave an almost-surprised laugh and said, “Well… I can’t say I fancy you much now considering we’re competitors.” 

Her accent pretty much struck both Shiro and Lance straight in the heart, and though he couldn’t see Shiro’s reaction, The Girls managed a collectively taunting, “ _Ooooh!_ ”

“Competitors?” Shiro repeated. “I hadn’t realized you were in doubles this season. You’re always single.”

“I’m in doubles this season, but relationship wise—which I’m sure you’re implying— _yes_ , I am single,” she said, her smirk almost too much for Lance to bear.

Shiro glossed straight over the relationship part and jumped to, “Then who’s your partner?” 

Allura pointed up the lifeguard stand, where Lance frantically transitioned into a relaxed pose, leaning forward with his chin resting on his hand as he waved down at Shiro. “That’d be me,” he said, winking.

Shiro left not long after, and Lance must have blacked out there because his adrenaline was so high trying to look cool in the face of a _professional volleyball player_. When he was gone, though, Allura donned a dazed expression post-smack-talk. The Girls flocked her with frantic undertones of, “Holy shit!” “You’ve got him in the palm of your hand!” “Ask him out, will you?” “He’s totally into you!”

Allura waved them off in favor of snapping her fingers up at Lance. “Good—Good work,” she said, clearing her throat as she turned away and ran her hands through her ponytail. “Now. I need a dip in some cool water.”

 

* * *

  **t h e t o u r n a m e n t 2 0 1 6**

Lance realized sometime later that the tournament would be both less and more exciting now that a rivalry was established between Allura and Shirogane. Even though he _knew_ he never stood a chance with Allura, he couldn’t help but feel… betrayed. Why would she spend all this time with him when she never planned on making something out of it? Was he really just the volleyball charity case she made it out to be in first semester? 

So he wasn’t excited about the tournament from that standpoint. The prospect of Shiro and Allura dating wounded Lance, but at the same time… he knew they’d _totally_ make the ultimate volleyball power couple, considering it was all The Girls could talk about these days. 

Many of them graduated, so the group was looking a bit thin, but they were still just as loud and obnoxious as before whenever they went to the beach. Lance realized that most days he felt like he was constantly on the lifeguard stand even when he wasn’t, because there was no way he could connect to that level of camaraderie with them. Even when they cooed at him and showered him with their affection, it wasn’t like volleyball was his life like it was theirs. So he never really felt bad to be excluded in their beach outings even when he _was_ at the beach, sitting in that lifeguard stand. 

Allura graduated with some of them, but her internship kept her in the city, in an apartment farther from Lance, and with a schedule not quite full-time, but close to it. Every spare second she spent at the beach, which meant she was just as dark as Lance, and aggressively trained him for the tournament. It started that weekend, which meant ever since Shiro showed up earlier that week, she doubled their training difficulty in hopes of breaking some of Lance’s standard volleyball habits.

He was decent at overhand serving, but now Allura was drilling into him, forcing him beyond his safe bounds of underhand serving. He was allowed to save the ball with any body part he desired—something that made Allura internally cringe, but she went with it anyways whenever Lance caught the ball with his elbow, or head, or dug his heel across the sand to hit it with his ankle. They were all decent catches considering they bounced straight back to Allura, but it didn’t stop her from wincing. 

Allura couldn’t always save the ball, and Lance’s sets were _flawless_ according to her. “I can’t believe it only took you a _year_ to figure it out,” she’d praise him. 

But every time they saw Shiro at the beach when they were practicing, Allura unintentionally became a _furious beast_ and would practically spike the ball at Lance’s face. She’d glare Shiro down from across the beach, and Shiro would do the same from where his abs glistened with water from the ocean. Lance was always too distracted by Shiro’s smoking hot abs to realize that the man was practicing with his partner, who happened to be Keith at the time.

Lance never _really_ knew or even noticed Keith until the tournament that weekend. 

Lance was sore, irritable, but ready to win. If he and Allura were in an anime, they’d be engulfed in angry, competitive flames the second they stepped up into the court for their first match.

They turned to one another and raised both arms, clapping their hands together. Allura grabbed hold of his hands, linking their fingers together as she hissed out, “You ready for this?” to which he replied, “As I’ll ever be.”

Shay and Hunk were on the sidelines waiting for their own bracket to start, so they were cheering and had signs up with their names displayed for everyone in the stands to see. It didn’t even feel like the match started until Allura slapped the ball over the net with neck-breaking speed, sending up a plume of sandy dust from where it drilled into the ground. 

She turned to Lance, who was still dazed, and yelled out, “Good job, good job!” and slapped his butt so hard he swore he’d bruise by the end of the day.

Overall Lance remembered the tournament being an energetic breeze, mainly because Shiro and Keith were on the other side of the bracket like Shay and Hunk were. They were at different ends, though, which meant Shay and Hunk didn’t have to go up against them until near the end when it came down to four stellar teams—Shay and Hunk against a team consisting of Matt and Pidge; Shiro and Keith up against Nyma and Rolo. Allura wanted desperately to watch Shiro’s match, but Lance stuck with Hunk, so they split up for that match.

Lance was struck by their competitors. His attention zeroed in on the ambiguous small mutant paired with Matt. They were pint-size and adorable, while at the same time, it was hard to ignore just how buff they were. Their hair mimicked their brother’s, so it was hard to gauge a gender—it initially irritated Lance until he actually got to know Pidge personally and ended up being smacked for being “an ignorant baboon!” 

They wore a tank top and baggy men’s swim shorts. Matt was slightly taller and sporting one of those prescription sunglasses with the ends hooked by a cord. They screamed at each other at the start of the match before the whistle blew, and Lance could see both Shay and Hunk look at one another thinking, “What the fuck is going on?”

The whistle blew, and as Pidge stood at the far end of the court, they twisted the ball three times around in their hands. They stood so far back from the end line that Lance wondered why—

They raced forward and literally _flew off the ground_. Lance and several other people stood up from the stands to watch Pidge _soar_ and shout as they attacked the ball with such force, it totally would have given Hunk an aneurysm—had it reached the other side of the court properly. 

It grazed off the net, and Lance found himself squeaking as the net pitched it into the air and spiraling over to Hunk and Shay. Shay controlled it with a set to Hunk, who spiked from the back without leaving the ground.

That was the first time Lance ever met Pidge. After the match, after both sides shook and Pidge and Matt advanced to go against Shiro and Keith, it was past midday and dinner consisted of Subway at a picnic table with the other players. Allura, Lance, Hunk, and Shay were already at a table when someone slapped down a bag next to Hunk, who jumped instinctively. “Good game,” Pidge said, collapsing onto the bench. 

“Uh… thanks?” he said, raising an eyebrow as Matt took a seat across from Pidge.

“How long you been playing?” they asked, tearing open their Subway bag and taking a massive bite out of the sandwich.

Matt rolled his eyes. “Ignore Pidge. They’re just bitter about having to go up against _Keith_.”

“ _Shuddup_ ,” they snarled. 

“Why? Shouldn’t it be Shiro you’re worried about?” Lance asked, and just the sound of his name caused Allura to throw down everything else to listen.

“Well, yeah,” Matt said. “But Keith’s a family friend. He’s doing it to get back at Pidge.”

“I’m sorry, who’s Keith again?” Lance asked, shaking his head. 

“Shiro’s partner,” Pidge grumbled. “He’s getting payback for the time I may or may not have… stolen his fancy camera. For good reason! But if he beats us I have to give it back ASAP instead of next month like I planned.”

“Keith even _broke in_ to our house to find it himself, but Pidge set up a boobytrap that shocked him when he set foot in our kitchen,” Matt explained, looking more or less impressed with his sibling.

“Diabolical,” Hunk said, astonished. “I knew there was something fishy about y— _ow!_ ” Pidge pinched him _hard_ in the bicep, and soon a reddish bruise showed up there.

Matt reached across to flick them in the head, no matter how much they writhed around to avoid it. Lance laughed, amused, and looked to where Allura was scowling, _seething_ even. “I’m going to crush that son of a bitch if it’s the last thing I do,” she bit out through clenched teeth. When she opened her terrifying jaws once more, it was to devour the rest of her sandwich.

 

* * *

  **t h e   t o u r n a m e n t :   f i r s t   s i g h t i n g**

Pidge somehow stuck to their group like the two dependent parts that secured velcro shoes. They seemed to take a liking to Hunk regardless of how nervous they made him. Pidge was, in all honesty, kind of terrifying. That first story they all heard of Pidge was enough to make them wary and cling to their drawstring bags in fear of Pidge stealing their most prized possessions.

Whatever the case, having Pidge stick to them relentlessly just meant that as they prepared for their own final matches, Lance found himself talking to Pidge on the sidelines of their match against Keith and Shiro. The famed volleyball tag team had yet to arrive, so he humored them.

“You think you stand a chance against Shiro?” he asked.

“Against those serves? Hell no. But it’ll be a close call with Keith,” they said, stretching their arms over their head and twisting their torso to and fro. Matt laughed from beside her, bouncing a volleyball on his fist.

“What makes you laugh?” Lance chuckled, smirking at Matt.

“Nothing. I mean—you saw Pidge’s air, and those spikes. Imagine a taller version of Pidge, and that’s Keith,” he explained. “Sure, Shiro’s got an excellent jump serve, but… that doesn’t mean he’s the best spiker on their duo, you know what I mean? Jump serving is pretty much the same motion as a spike but Keith’s always been better than Shiro at that without being on a university team.”

“Don’t talk him up so much,” Pidge grumbled. “Makes me feel bad.”

“As if you’re capable of— _hey!_ ” Matt shrieked, ducking and weaving away from them. They just chased him into the court as a round of applause from the crowd drew their attention to their competitors. 

Lance stepped away from the sidelines, but not before being floored by the stunning image of not Shiro, but the person he could now put a face and a name to. His jaw dropped much in the same way it had when Allura flirted so openly with Shiro, and how she was _totally flirting with the wrong guy because damn_.

It was the first time Lance actually _saw_ Keith, and recognized that they were in the same vicinity at the same time sharing the same space and air and sandy floor. He had the angular facial structure of a model who’d wear leather and sunglasses, windswept hair and goddamn tattoos everywhere. He donned several over his shoulder blades like wings—but he wasn’t cliche enough to tattoo fucking angel wings on his back, now was he? That would just be caving to the image people gave him of floating in the air whenever he went in for a spike, the distance between his feet and the floor expanding.

But Lance didn’t even see the tattoos until the match started and Keith turned to Shiro with both hands lowered for a high-five, and then raised to slap down again on Shiro’s palms. Keith’s bare back was narrow, just like that slim jawline of his that mimicked all the ‘V’s of his figure down to his Dimples of Venus to the ‘V’ dipping into his swim shorts—

Something jerked him back and he realized he was totally a foot away from the sideline. “Jesus, what’re you doing just _standing there_ ,” Allura reprimanded him. “Come on now.”

“I just—uh…” Lance stammered out dumbly, semi-pointing to the opposing team. “Is _that_ —?”

Allura pulled him onto the bleachers and peered around the ref’s stand to where Keith was preparing to serve. “I dunno. That’s the Keith Pidge was talking about, right?” she mused aloud, only to slow to a halt as she saw Lance staring wide-eyed at that black-haired _god_. He was drawn away by the haunting smirk on Allura’s lips. “ _Ooh_ , this is going to be _fun_ …”

“Don’t say that, please,” he whined.

“Why not?”

“Because that means it totally _won’t_ be fun. Your version of fun is decimating your rivals. And I am _definitely_ not—”

“That’s totally _our_ version of fun,” she insisted, taunting him and cooing in her quiet, suggestive voice, “You _like it, don’t you?_ You _like_ _him, don’t you_?”

“Why do you sound like SpongeBob right now?” he complained, shoving her so she could be quiet since she already distracted him from the very first serve. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

“ _Loud_ and _annoying_ ,” he remarked, and as they bickered, Matt set up Pidge for a killer spike—

Keith was in the partial back row of the court, and dove for the ball with one arm outstretched towards the back corner. Pidge’s spike landed against Keith’s wrist as he wrenched it into the air, ducking over his shoulder in a roll that brought him skidding to his feet. His sharp pivot sent him racing for the net where Shiro squared himself under the ball. 

It touched Shiro’s finger tips. 

He vaulted it to Keith at some impossible height that had Allura gawking.

Keith was in the air defying _gravity_.

Lance determined that Keith totally had a god complex if he was capable of flying that high without the repercussions of falling.

Shiro’s sets were perfectly made to accommodate Keith’s jump height—wide and arching across the length of the net to reach his target. And before any of them could so much as question the hit, it had already happened, and Matt’s hand jolted out to save it from behind him. Pidge lunged for the second touch. They were in a disarray that they barely survived with Matt bumping it sharply over the net.

Their first point went to Pidge and Matt, which only seemed to cause Keith and Shiro to become smugger, less concerned about losing. Lance didn’t realize why until the next point was theirs—which meant Shiro was serving next.

Which meant Allura was viciously slapping his arms and legs and every available surface of Lance’s flesh she could find. “Ow! Ow, ow, ow—”

“Watch! Watchwatchwatch—” she hissed, and Lance found himself instead looking at Keith who… was staring right at them smirking as if he knew something they didn’t.

And that was the first time Lance ever wanted to punch Keith in the face when he got the chance.

Lance couldn’t really remember the rest of the match because he was too busy furiously staring at Keith to bother watching the score, especially when Allura, Hunk, and Shay were reminding him of it the entire time someone scored a point. Lance furiously admitted that he would never get tired of seeing Keith lunge in the air like that. He furiously admitted that he could and would _totally_ watch Keith play volleyball all day long. He _furiously admitted_ that he had a problem with the guy in the red shorts.

But really, when it came time for Lance and Allura to go up against Keith and Shiro… Lance was quick to come to terms with the fact that _No_ , he seriously _could_ get sick of seeing Keith lunge in the air like that. 

The first time Keith spiked against Lance, he had .5 seconds to come to terms with the fact that he was seriously screwed. He got a bruise on his arm where he took the hit and managed to pelt it straight at Allura, who frantically set it.

Keith totally aimed for him too. He could tell because he was in mid court—who _spiked to the middle of the court_ when Allura was in the back recovering spikes?

Somehow they recovered with a spike from Lance, but they had to take hit and hit again from Keith’s offense—once from Shiro, but Lance certainly didn’t _bruise from that_. Allura and Shay both warned that Shiro was totally capable of turning into a fucking canon when he wanted to. But beach volleyball was just a game for him. A way to spend his summers in between his seasons.

It wasn’t fun anymore. This wasn’t _a fucking game anymore_.

Lance quickly realized that Keith was what Allura considered libero material—which sounded like an insult until Lance looked it up. After each spike, Keith retreated to the far back to recover Allura’s spikes, or Lance’s hits, because he dove for everything in such fluid motions that his recovery time was impeccable. Lance wasn’t tuned enough for _any of this_. He was brand new to all of this. They really shouldn’t have gotten as far as they had considering Shiro and Keith were destroying them. 

Thankfully, though, Allura managed to snag the majority of Shiro’s serves, if only in the nick of time. Lance remembered how painfully the adrenaline drummed on the inside of his ribcage to the point where it felt like he had heartburn. That feeling lasted hours after the match ended, after they walked to the middle of the court, shook hands, and Lance swore that he’d never see Keith again, otherwise he might _actually_ punch Keith in the face.

His resolve only became stronger when the following day he had a sad yet exciting not-celebratory dinner with The Girls and Hunk, and one of them pointed out the bruises on both Lance and Allura’s arms. It was an accumulation of everything during the tournament, but the purple-red marks on Lance’s biceps and elbows were _definitely_ from Keith’s spikes.

So he turned away and they said, “What’s up with him?”

“He doesn’t want to talk about it because his _crush_ pelted him with spikes. Right Lance?”

“Shuddup,” he grumbled, and stuffed his face with ice cream in hopes of muffling their laughter with it. It would have been more effective had he stuffed the ice cream in his ears instead.


	3. socially awkward situations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro and Keith move to San Diego, and Lance is seriously out of the loop.

* * *

  **s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 6**

So Allura graduated, and Hunk and Shay were now juniors, which made Lance a sophomore moving into the apartment he and Hunk would share. Shay’s bitter, silent competitiveness left her relationship with Hunk more or less “thin”, as Lance would put it. They didn’t talk about the sport she loved so much in fear of bringing back their loss from the summer. The reason they made it so far, according to Hunk’s rendition of their fight, was because “ _she_ took all the heat while _he_ stood there blindly.” 

Of course, Shay was too kind to _mean it_ , but it hurt Hunk nonetheless. “I’ve never _been_ an athletic guy,” he confessed sadly. “But Pidge said I’m _good_ so what’s it matter to her?”

“Pidge?” Lance repeated. He hadn’t heard that name since they went their separate ways after the tournament.

Hunk sat on their futon, fiddling with his hands as he turned away and shrugged. “Uh… yeah, I got their number after your guys’ match against Shiro. I didn’t think it was a big deal that we’ve been talking.”

“You’ve been talking?” Lance repeated, but it came out dumbly and they both snickered a little at it. No matter how old they were, they’d never stop being immature. “Okay, but isn’t Shay a little… you know about that kind of stuff?”

“About what kind of stuff?”

“Okay, can we stop repeating everything we say,” he sighed, and they both agreed to it. “I _mean_ that shouldn’t Shay be a bit jealous that you’re talking to Pidge at all?”

“We haven’t talked about it. And Shay’s never _been_ super jealous. I think she just assumes that I’m not the dating type to begin with—so why would I start shopping around for other girls, you know? Not to say… you _shop for girls_ because that just implies they’re objects and— _oooh man_ , my feminist English teachers in high school must be waking up from nightmares of me saying something like that..”

As Hunk moaned and groaned and ranted about how awful of a human being he was to objectify women he wasn’t even objectifying in the first place, Lance folded his clothes into his dresser and shut the drawer, thinking about _Pidge_ of all people. And of _volleyball_ and the _tournament_ and how Pidge _knows_ Keith.

_Keith_.

Lance would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought a _lot_ about Keith since then, and when asked he always flushed a little and sputtered, “Sh-Shut up! I don’t want to talk about it!” He wasn’t exactly an convinced that he was crushing on a guy at all. It was all just “in his head.” Hunk knew the topic was off limits, and since finding about about his and Pidge’s correspondence, Lance stole Hunk’s phone more than once to search for evidence of Keith somewhere in there.

And of course there was evidence of Hunk’s inquiries about Keith, and whether they knew Shiro. 

 

**_Hunk:_ ** _Wait, so if you’re all best friends with Keith, then do you know Shiro?  
_ _Like… how do they know one another_

**_Pidge:_ ** _Ok first off: not best friends, mortal enemies_

**_Hunk:_ ** _O right sorry  
_ _*mortal enemies_

**_Pidge:_ ** _Correct. And second: Shiro babysat us every now and then back in the day and Keith’s parents kinda adopted him but not officially  
_ _He’s also a mortal enemy, but we’ve had a truce for about a decade now. But in secret he’s my mortal enemy and doesn’t need to know that one day I will betray him._

**_Hunk:_ ** _Wow._

**_Pidge:_ ** _I vow to break our vow.  
_ _Someday._

 

Lance shuddered in the darkness underneath his blankets, and reemerged into the darkness of their room. It was stuffy under the blanket despite the chill outside of it, and Lance stared up at the ceiling thinking _What am I doing?_ because he _never_ stole phones just to read texts. It sounded like something one of his siblings would do, but not him. 

And maybe it was the raw vinegar in Pidge’s texts that led Lance to instinctively shift Keith’s image into that of a mortal enemy.

 

* * *

**n o v e m b e r   2 0 1 6**

Volleyball wasn’t quite the same that year, simply because of all the team members who left and who Lance had grown close to. He felt like he was losing Allura to the constant excitement over the ongoing feud between her and Shiro. It was a topic of utter excitement among the current girl’s volleyball players now that Allura stepped in as the coach. It was a constant job that offered her an opportunity to save up money for her future plans. 

She invited Lance to coffee more often, though it wasn’t as necessary as last year when Lance couldn’t stand being alone in his dorm room. He had Hunk now, which was a relief. After practice every now and then, Lance would lock the apartment door behind him and hurry down the three flights of stairs where he’d wrench his bike out from among hundreds of others. He’d haul himself up the hill and onto campus where Allura’s favorite coffee shop was, it’s lights still on and all. 

He pulled up beside it, and was thankful that university streets hardly made night feel like, well, _night_. It was a lot like walking through a hotel room at night—secluded but clearly safe within the confines of the walls the university seemed to create. Lance never felt scared to walk around at night (or rather, bike), but he could see how terrifying the campus could be in the darker areas. In the parks it was especially haunting, but in town around the shops and restaurants, it was… safe and warm.

Lance looked down the one-way street through usually busy restaurants and cafés. Neon lights blinked through the windows, and showed street reflections over Allura’s face through the nearest pane of glass. She caught his eye and waved from over her open laptop, featuring the classic marble-styled case and her multiple university volleyball stickers to show her loyalty.

He could hear the gentle coffee house music swaying before he opened the door. This time of year it was always chiller than expected of California weather. _He_ certainly hadn’t expected it when he moved to SoCal for school. Though, it was nothing like heavy-duty jacket weather, and he was grateful for the chance to break in all the sweatshirts he couldn’t fit underneath his winter jackets. He unzipped his hoodie as he walked up to Allura to drop off his backpack. 

“Hey. How’s it going?” he asked, leaning against the wooden counter to see her smile.

She brushed her hair back and reached behind to tie it up as she said, “If you keep _greeting me like that_ people’ll think we’re dating or something.”

“Maybe that’s the idea,” he laughed, knowing it was just their general chatter. He had pretend to get used to it back in the day, but now he just was. “I’m gonna get something to drink. You want a refill?”

“Um… yeah, sure. Why not. Might as well commit to having coffee at nine at night,” she said, nudging her tumbler towards him. 

He took it and brought it up to the counter where he smalltalked the barista. As he leant against the counter in front of the espresso machine, he listened to the barista tell him about her day, and how life was aside from, you know, the stress of midterms. “ _God_ , I just can’t wait for Thanksgiving break. Can you?” she asked.

“No, of course not. Longest wait in my life.”

“You’re so full of shit, McClain,” she snorted.

He went back to Allura, still giggling to himself as he slid her tumbler over. Allura gave him one of her quirky side-smiles. “What are you so happy about?” she asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, jokingly, but her response was to blush and flick to a different desktop. “What? Are you _actually_ happy? I mean, _you_ aren’t the one studying for midterms, so it’s quite possible.”

She bunched up her nose and he could see her sly grin through the reflection in the window blending with the neon lights. She switched screens again and tucked her hand over her mouth, watching Lance decipher the messages on the screen. 

“What? I knew you were talking to Shiro,” he said, and it was true. It wasn’t exactly a _secret_ when all The Girls were yelling about it in the locker room loud enough for Lance to hear out in the hallway. 

She rolled her eyes and huffed, “ _No_ , not _that_. It’s just… he’s moving to _San Diego_. He bought a bar and he’s gonna renovate it and stuff. I never… _considered_ that he’d be close enough for—”

“A relationship?” he finished when she didn’t, and she nodded meekly, pushing her hands against her stool.

She winced a little as she said, “You think that’s farfetched, don’t you?”

“ _No_ , of course not! You two are pretty much interested in the same things! And… you said you wanted to start your _own_ business so you have that in common,” he insisted. “Who knows. Maybe you two will be _rivals_ or something when you start up, you know?”

He knew Allura always adored the idea of owning her own coffee shop. She talked about it constantly once she was bold enough to confess her hopes and aspirations to him. She opened her concepts to him, her mental blueprints that she’d lay out for him to inspect and suggest options to. He may not have had much of an image for himself going into college, but he loved to see her options, and her plans for success. It was just difficult for him to come to terms with the fact that he might never be a part of those plans of hers.

They talked about her business plan and how it was far enough now that her father was seriously considering lending her money for the startup. “I just need to come up with a decent name for it, and names for menus and drinks and such,” she explained. “And he also suggested I look into asking my uncle to help manage the things I can’t. He used to own a café in Greenwich Village in New York and said he’d be willing to help out.”

“Really? That’s awesome!” he said, ecstatic. “What names were you thinking?”

“Well… we _are_ the Lions and I’m interested in a place that just opened up on campus,” she confessed, muting it slightly behind her hand. It was almost as if she was afraid the words would escape and jinx everything. “And I’d like the aesthetic to be kind of… _cute_ , you know? Safe and warm and a place people can stay at late. So I kind of like the idea of ‘The Quilted Lion’.”

They were both silent for a moment until she finally looked at him and saw him wincing at her. “What? Is it that terrible?” she asked dreadfully.

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s a bit bad. You _could_ just go with ‘The Lions’.”

“Hm… I don’t want to come into any legal issues using the same name as our mascot and _only_ that,” she confessed. “What about ‘The Lion Café’?”

He grinned at her, and nodded. “Yeah. That sounds like the perfect name for it.”

 

**f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 7**

Lance never… _really_ had girl friends before. Not like how close he and Allura were. And it was bizarre, mainly because all through high school he was surrounded by _acquaintances_ and _lukewarm relationships_ with people he wasn’t entirely thrilled by or fond of or _hated_. It was all by necessity in those days, but now he found himself wishing he could spend more time with Allura and Hunk. He never imagined that those feelings could stem beyond them, but somehow, it did.

Hunk started inviting Pidge over for their game nights.

Lance didn’t even know Pidge lived around the San Diego area. He didn’t even know they were _in_ SoCal because they all seemed to know that Shiro went to a university near San Francisco. Pidge claimed Shiro originally came from San Diego, and that was probably why he was coming back. “But I mean… you’d have to ask Keith for the details because I don’t fucking know.”

“What do you mean? And how would I even _talk_ to Keith? I don’t even have his number,” Lance grumbled, trying to keep the annoyance and the disappointment out of his voice. Secretly, he furiously desired to have Keith’s number—but only for the sake of _completely destroying him_ via text messaging.

“Whoa, no need to get bitter about it,” Pidge said. “But anyway, he and Keith have an apartment together way outside of Oakland. Like, I’m talkin’ the distance where you can get an apartment for an _actually decent price_. It took them ages to find it. Pretty much the minute a place opens up in those parts, it’s gone in two seconds flat.”

“So how far is that from San Fran?”

“Okay. So they aren’t even _by_ San Fran. They live in Monterey,” they confessed. “It’s, like, a little fishing town and it’s touristy because there’s whale watching shit going on there. And Keith’s always bitter about tourism so… at least it’s better than San Fran.”

“Okay, but why would someone who hates tourism live in California,” Hunk demanded. “That sounds a bit contradictory. Does he like to make himself suffer?”

“Damn, you guessed it,” they snorted, slapping Hunk on the arm.

Lance was too distracted asking questions and listening to Pidge to bother playing the game, and so he let them take over his controller. Hunk took out two zombies with headshots before reloading and glancing over at Pidge. “Wait—so if Shiro’s moving to San Diego…?”

Their expression darkened before bursting in excitement as they screamed over the course of killing several zombies in a row to get to Hunk’s character on the screen. After reassembling their thoughts, they said, “I know, I’m bitter about it.”

“Bitter about what?” Lance said.

“My mortal enemy is gonna be living on my turf again and I’m _pissed about it—EAT SHIT!_ ” Pidge screamed, slamming the triggers on the controller. Their machine gun blasted through a row of zombies, and Hunk let out an appreciative gasp. “He’s already got a job lined up, too. Some parlor in a perky neighborhood that totally isn’t his style. I hope he hates it there.”

“Parlor? Like, hair salon?” _Keith’s a hairstylist?_ Lance thought, jaw dropping as an image came to mind. Keith carding his fingers through Lance’s hair, massaging his scalp, bent over so their faces were inches apart as he trimmed the front of Lance’s hair…

“Earth to Lance— _parlor_ as in _tattoo shop_ ,” Pidge said, waving their hand in his face. “We could check it out when he gets here. I’ve been meaning to add to my sleeve.”

“Sleeve?”

“Can we stop repeating one another, please?” Hunk said. “It gets redundant.”

Pidge hiked up their pant leg, sticking their foot in the air as they rolled up past their thigh. There was a massive tattoo plopped on their thigh, and it tucked around their hip, disappearing from view. “This bad boy,” they said.

“Did… Keith do that?” Lance said, trying to only be mildly impressed, but “mildly” was long gone. He was preparing to worship the ground Keith walked on the instant Pidge nodded—but immediately afterward he’d punch Keith in the face for _destroying him in beach volleyball_.

“Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?” Pidge asked, glancing at him. 

_Well, now I am…_ he mused, eyes wide as he continued to stare at Pidge’s leg sleeve before they dragged their pant leg back down.

“Lance’s Mom would personally strangle him if she ever found out he even wanted a tattoo,” Hunk said, reiterating the fact that Lance momentarily forgot. He wilted, pouting at the screen. Hunk blasted a zombie’s skull into small, bloody bits. “But I say go for it, dude. If you want. No harm in it.”

“Yeah, except that it’ll be there forever.”

“Well, so will your face—no need to be embarrassed about it,” Pidge scoffed, and earned a slap in the arm for it.

Lance was hesitant to get a tattoo, mostly due to the uncertainty of whether or not it would result in being disowned by his mother. It was easy to cover up tattoos, though, and he continued to convince himself of this as he grudgingly offered to accompany Pidge to the tattoo parlor the week Keith started there.

 

* * *

**n u n c h i :   p h a s e  o n e**

It took an entire three days for Lance to decide what to wear, and he regretted every decision he came up with, but settled on skinny jeans and a plain black t-shirt with patterned sleeves and a patterned chest pocket. It wasn’t entirely outside of his usual wardrobe, but this was _Keith_ he was seeing. What was Keith’s style? Why did it matter? What the fuck was Lance doing with his life?

“Remember—he’s our mortal enemy. We’re just here because he’s got mad art skills,” Pidge said.

“That doesn’t help,” Lance huffed. “And when did we decide he was _my_ mortal enemy?”

“Does last summer not ring a bell?” Pidge said, flicking him in the arm. He shook them off, and scowled down at them. For someone so small, Pidge was a major annoyance. Somehow, though, Lance found himself following Pidge across the brick street to the bright blue storefront kitty-corner from them. It was an older facade, with a glossy azure finish around two narrow windows. Overall, it was small, tucked between brick buildings with similar facades, all in white aside from theirs. Over the door, the parlor name was posted in neon lights.

“ _Nunchi Tattoo_ ,” he said aloud, and looked down at Pidge. “What does that mean?”

“It’s tailored to people who don’t usual get tattoos,” they explained. “It’s Korean for understanding social situations. Keith said the place is, like, a good gateway into getting tattoos. So you’ll probably find giddy teenage girls here or something.”

“Ew, weird, why’s he working here?” Lance said, narrowing his eyes at the door as Pidge pushed inside.

The place was… unlike any tattoo parlor he saw inside or out. It was modern, minimalist, and had plants across the entire front waiting room where the receptionist sat, tapping a pen to the desk she sat at. It looked like a salon, and Lance figured he must not have been too far off that first time he guessed what Keith’s profession was.

“Hey, I have an appointment under Pidge Holt,” Pidge said, leaning up against the counter as the woman glanced at the list on the computer. “I requested Keith Kogane. 

“Yeah, he’s in back cleaning up. I’ll let him know you’re here,” the lady said, and Lance watched her fluffy blonde hair disappear behind a curtain as she went to find Keith. Lance caught Pidge’s eyes, and they snapped finger-guns at him. 

Lance rolled his eyes, crossing his arms as the lady came back with none other than Keith Kogane trailing behind her. Considering the white curtain they emerged from, Keith was a stark contrast. Everything he wore was black, all except for the crimson piercings framing his earlobes, and the red bandana holding his hair back. He looked like an irritated, goth disaster in comparison to the rest of the place—

—until he smiled.

“Pidge!” he cried, throwing his arms out. 

Pidge groaned, face twisting up as Keith tackled them with a hug, hefting them off the ground. He spun them around, and Lance watched in a mix of horror and amazement as Keith honest-to-God _laughed_. 

“How’s San Diego…” Pidge all but sighed as Keith put them down.

“Good! Really good—I’ll tell you about it in the back,” Keith said, gesturing to the curtain.

Pidge pointed to Lance. “Can he hang out in the back, too?”

Keith stopped, realizing then that Lance was there for Pidge, and not a customer. He looked over Pidge’s head to where Lance waved awkwardly near the counter. The girl with fluffy blonde hair pulled out a stick of gum from a drawer and popped it in her mouth as she watched the three of them stare at one another.

Keith narrowed his eyes. “You look familiar. Friends with Pidge?”

“Uh, yeah, and we went against each other in that beach volleyball tournament?” Lance offered, grimacing when Keith tipped his head in confusion. “The beach volleyball tournament. The one you and Shiro were partners in.”

“I… don’t…?” Keith said, shrugging helplessly. “I don’t remember, sorry. I have a shit memory—names and faces are just a blur sometimes.”

With that, he turned, and pulled Pidge along through the curtain. He held it open for Lance to follow, but Lance was too busy being offended to bother tagging along at first. After a moment, he clamped his open mouth shut and stormed after them. 

As Keith walked them to his table in the far back, Lance’s attention stuck to the both of them. Keith had an arm around Pidge as they walked, like it was a casual thing to do to anyone. He could tell Pidge was happy to be there, despite the pretend look of annoyance on their face. Keith stepped away as Pidge hopped up onto the cushioned table, and went to a narrow dresser covered in velum and other transparent papers. He took out a sketchbook before gesturing towards the armchair just within the bounds of his workspace. 

Lance glanced at it, and grudgingly took a seat there, arms crossed. He propped one ankle up on his opposite knee, and watched as Keith flipped towards the back of the sketchbook.

“I worked on this a while ago, but when you made the appointment I went ahead and readied a transfer paper for it. I have a few other options in case you don’t li—”

Pidge gasped the moment Keith turned the page to them. “I love it! Oh my God, Keith!”

“What is it?” Lance said, suddenly intrigued by Pidge’s over-the-top response. The only time he ever heard them _that_ excited was during the times they crashed Video Game Night, which was literally every Video Game Night now. He tried not to be bitter about the fact that Pidge was officially part of it now.

Keith held the sketchbook out to him without looking, and once Lance grabbed it, Keith walked off to fetch the transfer paper. It was an nondescript animal skull wrapped in thick, corded rope burning at the edges. It was all in graphite, but the flames were still distinguishable. After having observed Pidge’s previous tattoo thoroughly, Lance could see how it would fit. Keith tailored it to Pidge’s previous design before even knowing that Pidge would call for more.

“Did you ask him to draw you an animal skull?” Lance asked Pidge, mainly because he didn’t want to speak to Keith directly. The guy gave him a weird vibe every time he so much as glanced at Lance—he didn’t want to believe that it was the crush Allura teased him with.

Pidge shrugged, and shook their head. “No—I just let him go crazy.”

“I don’t go crazy,” Keith muttered as he snapped on sleek, black, rubber gloves. It covered whatever tattoos laced his wrists. “The last tattoo was just something that started as a doodle in one of their notebooks.”

“And I loved it too much to part with it,” Pidge said, clasping their hands together and punctuating it with a fake sniff. “Our love affair was too short!”

“Piss off,” Keith scoffed, smiling as he kicked a stool over to her. “It’s gonna go around the back of your thigh, so I’ll have you lay on your stomach and we can get started.”

Pidge did as they were told, and faced Lance with a giddy smile. Lance wasn’t sure _what_ expression was on his face, but Pidge laughed at it. “Cute,” they said.

“Shut up,” Lance muttered, looking away. A blush faded over his cheeks, and it rose to his ears when Keith said:

“So how do you two know each other?”

“That damn tournament you don’t seem to remember,” Lance snapped, and regretted it as soon as Keith looked up at him in alarm. “Sorry—it’s just—Allura and I were _literally_ part of the final match. You know, the brackets came together—Allura and Lance versus Shiro and Keith…? Ring a bell?”

“Allura? You know Allura?” Keith said, jaw dropping. “Well why the fuck didn’t you mention that sooner? _That’s_ how I know you… and also from her Snapstories…”

“Don’t forget mine, too,” Pidge interjected, and Lance was too bewildered to say anything. So Keith _did_ remember him—perhaps not from the tournament, but from everything else. 

“You’re friends with Allura on Snapchat?” Lance said. “What the fuck—she never _told me!_ ” Considering how much time she spent teasing him over his (untrue) crush on Keith, he figured she would have given him Keith’s username by now.

“Well, _duh_ , she’s basically dating Shiro now. I haven’t seen him since we moved because he spends every waking moment with her,” Keith said, gritting his teeth as he took a washable crayon and finished off the details that didn’t transfer properly. Pidge giggled when he reached their inner thigh, and apologized for it. 

Now that Lance thought of it, _Pidge_ was the one to tell him that Shiro and Keith were finally moved in. He hadn’t seen Allura… since last week… _Shit_.

“I’m being replaced!” Lance moaned dejectedly. “Allura used to spend all of her time with _me!_ ”

“Are you two dating?” Keith asked.

“What?! No! Hell no!” Lance cried, voice cracking. For a split second, he had the strongest desire to be seen as gay and nothing but gay. “We never—! I _don’t_ date… Allura.”

“You were about to say ‘women,’” Pidge accused.

Lance threw his arms over his face, trying to block out their laughter.

“ _Do_ you date women?” Keith asked, and Lance exclaimed in the highest-pitched voice he ever used, “ _Yes!_ I mean, _no!_ I mean— _fuck you!_ ” 

“Ah, so it’s men then,” Keith hummed, and Pidge slammed their fists on the table, cackling. “It’s okay to be uncertain sometimes. I thought I was gay when I first met Shiro. I was.”

“ _Day-um_ ,” Pidge wheezed.

Lance sputtered for a moment before bolting to his feet. Keith didn’t bother looking up from his work as he cried, “I’m going to look around for a bit! I’ll be back later!”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Pidge said, saluting him as he cruised out to the front of the tattoo parlor, red-faced and embarrassed beyond belief.

He hesitated in the waiting room, a hand over his face. He couldn’t remember the last time he embarrassed himself like that in front of a crush. Granted, Allura was the longest crush he’d ever had, and it was an entire era in his college career—his _entire_ college career. He embarrassed himself plenty of times in front of her, but even their first encounter hadn’t gone like this. He was a complete, disoriented _mess_.

“You okay there?” the receptionist asked, chin propped on her well-manicured hand. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he muttered, and hurried out the front door. He needed fresh air.

He paced the sidewalk in front of the parlor, and left when he saw the receptionist watching him with her apathetic eyes through the window. He hurried across the street and pulled out his phone, calling the first person he could think to talk to in a time like this. He walked the length of the stylish shopping area in downtown San Diego, waiting for his call to go through. 

Allura picked up in just enough time to make Lance anxious about whether or not she actually would.

“Lance! Hey, what’s up?” she said, chipper than ever.

“Why didn’t you _tell me_ you were dating Shiro?! I just made a fool of myself in front of Keith!” Lance yelled, slapping a hand over his face as he moaned, “Pidge was there and they made the entire situation _worse_ …”

“Oh, so you hit on Keith finally?”

“Why _finally_? I’ve never seriously talked to him until _now_ ,” Lance cried. “You’re the absolute _worst_! The worst! You get a boyfriend, and you abandon me!”

“I haven’t got a _boyfriend_ ,” she said, laughing. “Why, do you want me to meet you guys wherever you are? Let’s rectify the situation, yeah? Get you a date with that handsome boy.”

“No! I don’t want a date! I want him to _die!_ ” Lance said, and the vindication in his voice caused people near him on the streets to raise their eyebrows at him. “He’s evil and I hate his stupid fucking face.”

“Mm-hm, yeah, all I heard is, ‘I want to _date him_ , and _kiss his stupid face_.’”

“You’re insufferable,” Lance snarled, clenching his fist at his side as he stopped at a busy intersection. He found a bench and collapsed onto it as Allura continued to laugh to her heart’s content before someone interrupted on the other end. Lance perked up at the sound of a familiar, deep, baritone voice muffled in the background. “Is that Shiro? Please tell me you aren’t fraternizing with the enemy…”

“—No, I’m just talking to Lance,” Allura said, voice muffled. “I’m trying to get him to ask Keith out on a date.”

The other voice was indistinguishable at first, but Lance caught the tail end of, “—so tell him I say good luck.”

“Shiro says ‘good luck,’” Allura said, but Lance had already hung up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Find us on Tumblr :D**   
>  [girlskylark](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)   
>  [llstarcasterll](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/)


	4. accidental occupation

Pidge’s tattoo required three visits to finalize it, and Lance went to the last two because he couldn’t bother going back to Nunchi the day he made an absolute fool of himself in front of Keith. Next time, he’d make up for it. He was certain of this.

After he hung up on Allura, though, he had nothing better to do except sit on an nondescript bench on the posh side of San Diego that was closest to his university. A lot of San Diego was generally just… flat buildings no higher than two stories, styled with palm trees as decoration, and tan, concrete arches that reminded him of _Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag_. But this area was filled with tall, striking buildings with cutesy storefronts on the streets. He found a coffee shop that wouldn’t swear at him for not buying anything as he snuck onto a table a block away from Nunchi. 

He sat on his phone, and used the remaining 50% of his battery to search for Keith on all of Pidge’s social media accounts. Pidge wasn’t exactly a social media nut, but they had one of every account despite having nothing posted. Lance skimmed through their friends and follower lists and came up empty.

_They’re childhood friends—they_ have _to follow each other on Facebook_ , he thought, but he was sorely wrong. Keith didn’t have a Facebook.

He felt guilty for attempting to stalk Keith via the internet, and shut off his phone to conserve the dwindling battery life. Secretly, he’d been hoping to find some embarrassing pictures, and realized that Pidge probably had plenty of those just on their phone. He decided to ask them, if he was able to build up the courage. 

On the second session, Hunk came for moral support—for both Pidge and Lance, since apparently, Pidge needed someone’s hand to hold when Keith took a needle to the inside of her thigh, and it wouldn’t be Lance’s hand. Lance reclined back in that white armchair and propped a foot up on the cushion. He swung his backpack down in front of him, and took to studying the way Keith snapped on his black gloves again, and readied a thicker needle for that day.

“Yeesh, doesn’t that hurt?” Lance said.

“Immensely,” Keith said, and Pidge sobbed mockingly. “It’s the same as any other needle, only there’s multiple of them attached. Wider ones are for shading. We finished all the lines and details the first time around.” He twisted the barrel into the tattoo gun and set the device on a table near Pidge. He cleaned the space of Pidge’s thigh that was no longer red and irritated from the first round. Pidge said they loved the tattoo more and more with each passing day. 

Hunk pulled up a chair from one of the empty sections in the parlor. There was another tattoo artist across the way, and Lance could hear the hum of their tattoo gun working away. Other than that, soft, jazzy, electronic music was pulsing through the speakers, and Lance wondered if he could fall asleep to it. He decided that he couldn’t, not when Keith was sitting there in a sleeveless, cutoff shirt and ripped jeans. His hair was tied back in a ponytail, and a bit of facial hair was starting to grow along his jaw. It wasn’t thin, like Lance speculated Keith’s facial hair might be. It was full, and created an even shadow across his jaw, and to where Keith shaved a fine line between it and his neck.

Hunk flicked across his phone notifications as Pidge squeezed his other hand. “This is the only time I will ever hold your hand I swear to _God_ ,” they seethed.

“I will cherish every moment of it,” Hunk vowed. “It is a true blessing.”

“It sure as fuck is,” they said, grimacing as Keith started up the gun. It hummed in his hand, and drew Lance’s attention back to the confident way Keith studied his work from last time, and began the process of filling it in. 

After several minutes of general silence, Lance commented on Keith’s sketchbook collection building on the countertop. Keith spared a glance up at him before turning back to Pidge’s leg. “It’s mostly commission work from my previous job. I don’t have a huge cliental here yet.”

“What do you mean?” Lance asked, tipping his head to the side.

“Think of it like hairdressers,” Pidge said. “People general go to the same hairdresser every time. They don’t like change, and Keith’s suddenly a new guy in town.”

“Helps that this place is for beginners. Usually you’d go to someone who’s already gotten a tattoo, and ask them about their artist experience,” Keith said, drawing a cloth over a bit of ink on the surface of Pidge’s skin. “But if you’re not in that sort of crowd… well… this is the place for you, I guess.”

“What about your old job? Did you work at a tattoo place there?” Lance asked.

“Yeah. Started there in college, got sick of college, stayed there full-time,” Keith sighed. “Paying off useless debt that went towards bullshit, is what I say.”

“What a mood,” Lance said, and pictured Keith as an art student in San Francisco, realizing that paying to be taught something he taught himself was pointless. For some people, being taught art was necessary, but for others, it was a waste of time. He could see how developed Keith’s skill was, and wondered how much of that even came from university courses. Art required practice, guidance, and self-motivation to evolve one’s skill—all tools Keith already had equipped. 

Lance resisted the urge to flip through the pages on Keith’s table. 

They talked about Keith’s art for the majority of the session with Hunk and Pidge’s commentary supplementing the silences in between. Lance was relieved that he found a topic to talk about with Keith that interested them both. Lance wasn't exactly an art student, but he appreciated it, and could empathize with Keith’s rants and stories about the horrors of his art school experience.

That day, when they were set to leave until the next session, Keith followed after them to the waiting room where Lance crossed his arms and tipped to the side to get a better look at Pidge’s bandage. Keith had it taped around the outskirts of the design, and the gauze crinkled a little. Despite that, Lance spent enough time watching Keith work on it to know exactly what it looked like underneath. 

Pidge flaunted the bandage like it was a prized diamond necklace instead of red-raw skin repeatedly pricked at with ink. Hunk did an appreciative whistle, and the receptionist from before clapped her hands.

“I have to say, for all we’ve talked about your art experience, I haven’t seen much of it,” Lance told Keith, who stuck beside him with a stoic expression on his face until the moment Lance addressed him. It _felt_ different from before, with Lance sitting in the armchair, and Keith focusing on his work. This was much more…

_Personal_.

Keith cleared his throat, scratching the back of his neck as he said, “I don’t… I mean, I’m not _opposed_ to you looking at it. I have a blog where I post a lot of my work… It’s sort of like a portfolio.”

Lance asked for it eagerly, and so Keith walked behind the receptionist counter and wrote out the URL on a post-it note. He flattened it on the countertop, facing Lance, pointedly looking away to where Pidge was making heart-shapes with their fingers. Keith flushed as Lance groaned at them and swiped the note off the counter.

He waved it in the air and said, “Maybe I’ll consider getting a tattoo one of these days after giving this a look.”

Lance turned away then, and escaped out the door before Keith could tell just how much effort it took to say that one sentence. Pidge and Hunk followed him out, and Hunk oohed and awed. “That was really sweet! He got all flustered after you left,” Hunk said, and Lance slapped his hands over his face. He regretted saying it in front of them.

Pidge whistled low, though, hands in the short pockets of their athletic shorts. “I’ve gotta warn you, Lance, every time I play with the idea of getting a tattoo, Keith goes a little crazy. He starts coming up with shit the day you say so.”

“Really?” Lance squeaked, and calmed a little. So… saying something like that wasn’t _entirely_ hopeless. At least, he hoped so. Truthfully, he was flattered by the idea. What would Keith picture when coming up with ideas? Would he wonder about Lance, and the type of person he was? They didn’t talk much about him—the conversation was always geared towards Keith and his work—so he lowered his hopes when it came to Pidge’s next session. 

Keith _definitely_ wouldn’t have any ideas to pitch.

Not in the slightest.

Nope, not at all.

* * *

**m a r c h 2 0 1 7**

Allura called Lance several nights later and demanded they go out together. They saw less and less of each other—what with school on Lance’s shoulders, and building a business on Allura’s. She needed a break from working full-time, maintaining the new staff and cafe. It became her most prized possession, and everything about the place had her glowing with excitement when she wasn’t half-dead on her feet. That was how Lance found her the evening he stopped at The Lion Café around ten at night, when the crowd of desperate students were still going strong. The place wouldn’t close until two in the morning. It was the ideal spot for trustworthy students to spend their night if their party-hard roommates kicked them out or caused a ruckus. 

Lance stood out beneath the neon sign Allura loved to death. It was blue, and glowed against the moisture misting on Lance’s beanie. They hadn’t had rain in a while, and Lance took the moment to appreciate how the streets shined with fresh water. The dull grey asphalt turned a shimmery, inky black, and reflected reds and greens from the stoplights. Allura’s blue sign streaked across it, and the puddle just before Lance’s feet. He snuck closer to the awning, avoiding the dribble of water, and the students sat at the bar countertop just beyond the window.

The florescent lights cast a halo around him as he turned at the sound of the front door opening. An umbrella popped open, and when it lifted, Allura was smiling apologetically at him.

“Sorry for making you wait—ready to go? We can share my umbrella,” she said, and Lance hurried underneath it. While the downpour had passed, it was still misting.

Lance let Allura hold onto his arm as they walked. She was wearing a plain black button up tucked into maroon slacks, and her hair was tied in a messy bun (that used to be pristine and neat earlier that day). It fell in white, frizzy tendrils around her face, and she glanced at him as they waited for a walk sign to show. A blood vessel had popped in her eye, and left one side of it blisteringly red. 

“You don’t look so hot,” Lance said. “You’re usually hot, but not this time around.”

“It’s been a long day,” she confessed. “I need a drink. I’ve been holding off all week. I didn’t expect the place to be this busy straight off the bat, you know what I mean?”

“College students are always looking for a place to sit around at for hours,” Lance reminded her. “And you’ve go the space for it—unlike most places around here.”

Lance knew that too well. When Hunk needed the place to himself, Lance wound up jumping from coffee shop to coffee shop searching for a place to sit. By the time he _did_ find a place, Hunk would text him and say that the coast was clear. 

It didn’t take long for them to reach the bar. It was new and stationed just across the street from The Lion Café. Lance eyed it wearily, hesitating a tad, but Allura pulled him along. Even exhausted, she still had the strength of a stubborn bull. He followed her through the door where she closed her umbrella and waved at the bartender. Lance thought to himself, _Wow, I didn’t know Allura drank regularly enough to befriend a bartender_ , but then realized who, exactly, that bartender was.

“ _Shiro?_ ” Lance whined, slumping forward. Allura dragged him along to the bar where she propped her umbrella on one of the hooks beneath the counter. She pushed herself up onto a chair and gestured vaguely between the two of them.

“Shiro, you know Lance. It’s been a while,” she said, and rather than the tournament, Lance remembered the time The Girls attempted to kidnap the iconic college volleyball player, Shiro. 

Shiro reached across the bar to shake his hand, and Lance almost didn’t reciprocate. Even if he didn’t like the guy, he’d hate to be seen as a total asshole, so he accepted his fate. He was here for Allura, anyways—that much was made clear when he saw how beat she was.

“Brandy Manhattan for the lady,” Shiro said, pointing to where Allura beamed, pleased that he remembered, “and… what’ll it be for you?”

“Oh! Uh, I’m not… quite old enough,” he confessed. Almost a junior, he was just shy of hitting twenty-one. All of his friends were already there, but alas, he was a young one.

Shiro gave him a bland look and pulled up two glasses. 

“Just a cherry coke, if that’s okay,” Lance said. 

“Splash of rum,” Allura said.

“This is a _new establishment_ ,” Lance hissed at her, and she gave him a haughty look as Shiro prepared their drinks. “I don’t want to get him in trouble when he just opened the damn place.”

“Lance, honestly, it’s fine. It’s a Wednesday evening—not many people here,” Shiro said. He emphasized it by glancing down either side of the bar. There were a few stragglers—friends meeting friends—but other than that, it was just Lance and Allura. “I’m stricter on the weekends.”

“That’s fair,” Lance hummed, and now that he was slightly more lenient, Shiro took Allura’s recommendation and made him a rum and coke topped with cherry syrup. Lance didn’t drink all that often—no reason to, especially when all he really did was hang out in the apartment and study—so the treat had his toes curling and a delighted hum to escape him when he took his first sip. 

“So… I hear you’re planning on asking Keith out,” Allura said.

Lance sputtered on his drink, and looked away, coughing into his arm. 

“Keith mentioned something about meeting you,” Shiro said, and Lance eagerly looked at him, listening. “I don’t remember most of the conversation…”

“Dammit. That’s okay—and I’m _not_ planning on asking him out. We’ve only seen each other three times total!” Lance said, and ticked off all of the occasions on his fingers. “The tournament, the time I made a fool of myself, and then the last session Pidge had. So mostly, I’m just a customer right now.”

“That’s why you’re supposed to _ask him out_.”

“Wouldn’t it be bad for business if I started dating one of the workers? I still want to get a tattoo,” Lance complained. 

“They don’t care, trust me,” Shiro said. “And if anything, Keith would get you perks at Nunchi. I say go for it sooner rather than later.”

“How do _you_ know whether or not I’m just ruining my chances of getting a bomb-ass tattoo?” Lance whined. “You don’t even remember your conversation with him!”

“No, but I know that Keith would do well with a guy like you. He’s had bad breakups before with assholes I never approved of,” Shiro said, sliding Allura her drink. “And if you’re friends with Allura, you have to be at least a _little_ decent.”

“Thanks? I guess?” Lance laughed.

Allura took a sip of her drink and sighed in relief. “Today someone spilled a chocolate shake all over the rug by the couches. I’m still wondering how to get the stain out,” she said, and thus commenced a run-through of bad experiences that day. Lance couldn’t imagine working in costumer service, especially when that service happened to deal with food and drinks and shitty, high-maintenance customers asking for a quadruple-shot, no-foam, piping hot, extra vanilla shot latté that was more of a death sentence than a treat.

Unless… you considered death sentences to be a treat, that is.

As Lance focused on Allura, he found his attention interspersed between her and Shiro as Shiro expressed his worries, and the sincerity was almost convincing enough for Lance to fall for it. They were enemies, though—Shiro couldn’t possibly be as great of a guy as he made himself out to be, right? No one could be that great of a guy and be _straight_. Lance submerged his anxieties over it with his drink, and distracted himself with it whenever Shiro happened to be speaking. 

He had other customers to tend to, though, so Allura turned her full attention to Lance after a while and said, “I’m still going through applications for more baristas. Are you sure you don’t want to apply?”

“No. I feel like that’d be weird,” he confessed. “I mean, I _am_ looking for a job, but I just wish there was something closer to my major for me to apply for. Don’t wait for me to make up my mind.”

“You’d be so good with the customers, though,” she sighed. “You have, like, all the body language that says that you’re really paying attention when you actually aren’t.”

“For whatever reason, today seems to be the day of double-edged compliments,” he mused aloud, and shook his head. “And I am paying attention! Most of the time.”

“Like, for someone with as much social anxiety as you have, you’re awfully good at making eye contact,” she said, and it prompted him to break eye contact. He looked down at his lap, blushing. “There’s no better companion than someone who knows how to balance listening and talking. Like, when you think about most relationships, women tend to go for people who are avid listeners whether they know it or not.”

“Is that why you went for Shiro?” he asked innocently, intentionally just as Shiro was walking their way. 

“What about me?” Shiro asked, raising an eyebrow at them. Lance cackled and nudged Allura, who remained calm and collected as Shiro approached them.

“We were just talking about how great of a conversationalist Lance is, and how great a bartender he would make.”

“We were _not—_ ”

“I could teach you how to bartend,” Shiro said. “You could start here if you wanted.”

Lance’s jaw drop, and his silence was just long enough to make declining the offer awkward. Thanks to Allura, Lance was on his way to getting a bartender’s license with the help of Keith’s brother.

* * *

**a p r i l 2 0 1 7**

Lance couldn’t exactly call it a mistake, though, especially when he needed a job to cover rent and school costs. His scholarships helped, of course, but they would only take him so far. Shiro reassured him that he’d get weekend shifts, when the tips were the most and there was always something to do. He hated the idea of working at grocery stores where he’d stand around and wait for customers, but as soon as Thursdays hit, he was in constant motion at Shiro’s bar.

He spent the start of the week after classes hanging around Shiro’s bar with the handful of regulars. Allura stopped by once on his first day to make sure everything was going well, and ordered a brandy Manhattan so Shiro could show him how it was done. 

“Isn’t it weird, though, that I’m practicing to be a bartender and I don’t even drink?” Lance asked as Allura took a sip and gave him a thumbs up.

“It tastes like any other, and if you’re unsure, just ask Shiro,” Allura told him. “And you look like you’re over twenty, so don’t worry about people not trusting your judgement.”

“And everyone just assumes college students drink regardless of their age,” Shiro added.

Lance flattened a hand over the front of his black, button up shirt and frowned at the both of them. “I don’t trust you,” he said. 

“Then drink up! Learn how it tastes!” Allura said, and finished half her drink before sliding it over to Lance with a tip. “I have to get back to The Lion, so I’ll see you later! Come visit me after work!”

“‘After work,’” Lance mocked in a derpy voice that Shiro laughed at. “This is just _training_. I’m not even getting _paid_ for it.”

“That was _definitely_ a passive-aggressive demand direct towards me,” Shiro said, and one of the customers at the end of the bar laughed.

Lance dumped the rest of Allura’s drink in the sink. Truthfully, he felt guilty for drinking. Perhaps it was his mother’s uptight attitude towards things along the lines of tattoos and alcohol… _drugs_. Lance shuddered a little. School did wonders on scaring him away from those less-pleasant things, and having a mother like Ramira was the cherry on top. She’d have a fit if she found out he was a bartender now. She’d have a fit if she found out he was planning on getting a tattoo…

_All in the name of love_ , he mused sarcastically, throwing down a towel over the edge of the sink.

He bent down to start cleaning glasses. As he dunked them in sanitized water and set them aside to dry, the front door chimed, and Shiro perked up beside him. “Hey Keith! How was work?”

Lance’s insides felt like they had just been vacuumed up his throat. He coughed off to the side and barely recovered in time for Keith to notice him standing beside Shiro. Behind the bar. Lance cleared his throat, hands on his hips, and ignored the fact that his hands were soaked from cleaning bar glasses. Dark splotches started to grow on his hips. 

“Uh… good…” Keith drawled, squinting at them. The dim light in the bar was supplemented by the fact that there were wide, open windows in the front. It caught on the suspicion on Keith’s expression as he sat at the bar, swinging a cloth, black tote onto the bar hanger. “Um… Lance?”

“Allura roped me into it,” he confessed dejectedly, lowering his hands to slouch. 

“Ah.” That seemed to improve his mood. He relaxed in his chair and looked to Shiro. “Could I… have a coke, please?”

“Nothing fancy?”

“Nothing fancy today,” he said, clapping his hands on the bar, “and work was fine.”

Keith glanced at Lance, and Lance happened to be staring at him, and so he caught the slight pause in Keith’s expression before the man’s eyes lowered, and skirted around the edge of the bar before landing on his tote bag. He looked back at Lance before clearing his throat.

“I wasn’t… expecting to see you,” he confessed, dipping down to pull up his bag. “I don’t know if you had any plans on that tattoo you were thinking about…”

“No—no plans,” Lance said, shaking his head.

Keith’s shoulders relaxed, and he pulled out a sketchbook. “I’ve been jotting down ideas and shit so you can have a look. Some people like to have all the control over what it looks like, so I won’t be offended if none of them work for you.”

Lance stepped closer, and leant over the bar as Keith flipped through the pages, and opened to a specific one marked with a blue tag. Lance was expecting a list of ideas—generally when someone says “jot down,” Lance thinks of scribbled handwriting, not _full out sketches_ with _shading_ and _all the works_. 

“Oh wow,” he blurted out before he could stop himself, and tugged the sketchbook closer. 

“What do you think? I haven’t had the time to expand on any of them but—”

“ _Expand_ on them? Dude, these are perfect as is,” Lance said, about to flip to the next page, but Keith slapped his hand over the sketchbook to stop him. Lance leant back, alarmed, and looked up at Keith’s sheepish smile. It was amusing to see such an innocent thing on someone so covered in aggressive tattoos. 

“It’s, uh, just these four right now,” he clarified, and turned the sketchbook back around.

Shiro returned to them, and slid a tall, frosted glass over to Keith. Keith’s attention went back to his brother. “Are we still on for tomorrow?”

“Yeah! Definitely, if I’m able to get out on time tonight,” Shiro said.

“What’s… happening tomorrow?” Lance ventured, raising a quizzical eyebrow at the both of them. 

Shiro looked at Keith, who looked back at him, and gestured vaguely. Shiro sighed. “I’m not in training anymore, and if I stop now, I’ll never bother staying in shape,” he said, drying his hands on a towel. “So we work out together every morning _I_ can. Sometimes I don’t get out of here until eleven, and then it’s an hour back to our apartment.”

“You’ve become too much of a night owl,” Keith accused.

“I was never able to before!” Shiro cried, pacing away. “I don’t know what to do with myself! I was always either in class or at practice, nothing else. And now it’s just the bar, and the apartment.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you,” Lance laughed. “From here I go home, study, sleep, wake up for my 8AM—it’s a vicious cycle.”

“This is your second day,” he said.

“And I’m not getting _paid for it!_ ” he added, and Shiro walked off, laughing, as the front door opened and a pair of customers walked in. Lance watched after him, before sighing and turning back to Keith’s raised eyebrows. Knowledge of his loudmouth came back to him, and he looked away, flushed. 

After a moment of awkward silence in which Keith fiddled with the corner of the page, Lance went on cleaning bar glasses. He tried not to focus too heavily on the fact that Keith was sitting _right over him_ , and could be staring at him this entire time. As flattering as it was, he was self-conscious about every that he did. He wasn’t used to cleaning bar glasses, and the one-man assembly line was significantly slower than every time he watched Shiro do it. Still, he kept at it until he finished cleaning, and shut off the machine.

Keith cleared his throat.

“So what do you go to school for? What year are you in?” he asked. 

Lance was used to the questions.

“Computer science, and I’m a sophomore,” he replied with a smile. “Though, I came in with some credit from high school, so technically I’m a junior.”

Keith gave a mildly impressed hum of acknowledgement. “Congrats. Almost there.”

“ _Almost_ , God, I’m ready for it to be over,” Lance sighed. 

“And… how old are you?” he asked, and Lance couldn’t help but think that it was a loaded question. He suddenly worried that Keith was secretly middle-aged and hiding it with a flawless facial hygiene regimen.

“Twenty. You?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Nice.” 

_Excellent_. So they just exhausted the last social output of _that_ vein of conversation. Lance looked to Shiro, desperate for work, but Shiro was handling customers. If he wanted to keep talking to Keith, he’d have to start a completely new line of conversation and—

“So what do you do when you’re not… here or in class?” Keith asked, and Lance suddenly realized that they were both capable of propelling the conversation, and it was reassuring to know that Keith wanted to continue it. It made rambling far easier, and so Lance talked about every thing he could in the time it took for Keith to finish his drink and ask for another. 

Lance’s stories gained interest on the other side of the bar. He had been talking about the few parties he went to—spawned by the comment, “How’s life at this party school?” that Keith threw at him—and how disastrous they were. A group of girls at the end of the bar moved over the instant he brought up one of the frats he went to, and they began sharing horror stories with the both of them.

Near the end of it, one of the girls pushed her empty glass towards Lance and pointed her finger at the tap her drink came from. As Lance filled the glass and tipped the excess foam out, she asked, “How long’s this place been open for?”

“Since February,” Shiro said from the far end of the bar.

“That’s what I thought. I’ve been here a few times, but I haven’t seen this guy around,” she said, pointing to Lance. “What’s your name?”

He gave it to her with a courteous smile. “I haven’t been here very long.”

“Hm. Well, I’ll have to come here more often if you’re here,” she said, and Lance beamed, flattered by her appreciation. 

Lance filled the rest of their beers before ending on Keith’s half-finished coke. “Want me to top it off?” he asked.

Keith had his tote in his lap, sketchbook tucked away. “I should probably head home. I have a lot of work to do,” he confessed as he unfolded the cash from his wallet and sifted through it. He passed it to Lance along with the tip. “See ya.”

He spun off of his stool and headed for the end of the bar where Shiro was. Lance watched as they talked for a small while before Keith hurried out the front door, tucking his ponytail through the back of a baseball cap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find us on Tumblr :)  
> [girlskylark](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)  
> [llstarcasterll](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/)


	5. betrayal of the worst kind

Shortly after Keith left, Lance wondered if he had done something wrong.

No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t done a single thing wrong aside from talk to customers like he _should_ have been paid to do (damn his training period). Still, he couldn’t help the sick feeling in his gut that came with feeling obligated to pay every mind to Keith whenever he was at the bar. 

Keith stopped by at least three times a week to visit Shiro after his morning-afternoon shifts at Nunchi. He talked to Lance until customers came to interrupt them, or to listen to whatever story Lance was telling. That seemed to be a common theme, and one that Keith picked up on quickly. Lance couldn’t ignore the way Keith’s open smiles turned off-standish when confronted by strangers at the bar. 

“He doesn’t like the attention,” Shiro confessed. “It’s one of the reasons why he hates public transit. It’s different when the conversation is personal, so I wouldn’t take _this_ personally.”

“I feel like it’s personal, though. Like I’m doing something wrong,” Lance confessed. 

“You’re allowed to talk to people, Lance,” Shiro laughed. “Don’t feel bad for having your attention divided. Besides, this is work, not a date.”

No matter how much Lance flustered over the idea of dating Keith, he felt like they _were_ dating every time Keith walked in through the front door. He felt like Keith’s disinterest in group topics was directly associated with relationship jealousy. It was wrong, and awkward, and _uncomfortable_ , but Shiro was right. He couldn’t take this personally, and if he did, he’d lose his mind.

So, Lance figured the best way to improve this was to drift away as soon as people started to file in and greet him by name. He was used to sticking to Keith through his training, and so the first day he drummed his hands on the bar top, Keith looked up from his phone to stare at him.

“I’m gonna go help Shiro out, so I’ll see you next time?” Lance said, and Keith blinked in mild surprise.

“Oh. Um, okay,” he said. “See you next time, then.”

Lance walked off, and greeted the regulars all with a high five and a smile. As he started off some of their drinks, he watched Keith fiddle away on his phone, sipping his drink instead of worrying over it whenever people came to sit by him. He seemed content, and Lance realized that this was what he did before Lance showed up and disrupted his flow of things. He came after work, talked to Shiro for a short while, and stuck to himself on his quiet section of the bar.

Shiro smiled at Lance as he came over. He squeezed one of Lance’s shoulders as he passed by. Lance took it as a silent, “Good job,” and promptly glowed under his boss’s appreciation. 

It didn’t take long for the bar to fill up that Thursday night, and the real bartender came to fill in Lance’s place for the evening. As he pulled his sweatshirt over his work shirt, Shiro pulled a slip of paper off of his desk and a sharpie from his pocket. He wrote the URL for an online test for an official bartender’s license, followed by an online index for all drink terminology that they covered those several days.

“And you’ll do fine on the legal parts since we covered that all on the first day,” Shiro said. “Let me know when you finish it, and we can get you set up on payroll.”

“Okay, I’ll do this over the weekend then,” Lance promised, waving the slip in the air before folding it. He looked up as he followed Shiro out the door to the front of the bar, and found that Keith was at the hinged counter waiting for them. Lance lifted it up and passed over onto the floor of the bar, where all the customers were chattering away over the music. 

“Text me your availability for next week,” Shiro told Lance, and Lance said he would, smiling reassuringly as Shiro went on to saying his farewells to Keith. Lance lingered for a moment, hearing the end of Shiro saying, “—Monday should be fine for me. Sundays aren’t too crazy in the evenings.” He started for the door before he could hear what Keith had to say. It was the latest Lance had ever seen him there, and it must have attributed to the fact that Lance kept the conversations on the opposite side of the bar. He could _definitely_ understand social exhaustion—Hunk’s girlfriend, Shay, wasn’t much of a talker. If she did talk for long hours at parties and stayed the night at their apartment, Lance found her huddled in a blanket on their couch the following morning, fighting off sleep for the entire first half of the day. 

Lance was waiting for the walk sign outside The Lion Café when he heard Keith calling his name. 

_Yes! Score One for me_ , he thought, turning to face Keith as he approached. The walk sign turned on, but Keith seemed to be going the other way, so they stuck to that corner together as Keith talked.

“Hey, I was just—” Keith started, and hesitated as Lance’s brain screamed, “ _Yes? Yes! Say it!_ ” Instead, Keith scratched the back of his head, so Lance ventured forward.

“Yeah, I was wondering if maybe—”

“—You’d want to work out together tomorrow morning?” Keith said. It wasn’t exactly what Lance was expecting, but he vowed long ago that he’d take anything he could get.

“Yeah! Yeah, I was… thinking the exact same thing,” Lance said, laughing.

“Were you?”

“No, I wasn’t. But I’m down for that.”

“Oh, okay,” Keith said, blinking owlishly at him before smiling and looking down. His eyes vanished from view beneath his baseball cap visor. “It’s just, um, Shiro’s too busy on the weekends so I don’t usually have anyone to work out with on Fridays and shit.”

“Where’s this gonna happen?” Lance asked, because all he could think of was the university gym, which Keith wouldn’t have access to. 

“Oh, right,” Keith realized the same thing, and rubbed his hand over his chin. “Um… well, Shiro and I usually go to the gym near our apartment… We could get you a day pass?”

“That works for me. Text me the address?”

“I don’t… have your number.”

“Then give me your damn phone so I can put it in there,” Lance said. Keith pulled it out of his pocket, and unlocked it so Lance could tap in his number into a new contact. He added a few goofy emojis to the end of his name, and finalized it by opening up Keith’s camera. 

“You don’t have to— _Oh!_ Okay,” Keith laughed, suddenly pushed to Lance’s side with an arm around his shoulders. 

“Smile!” Lance said, and snapped a picture of the both of them to put as his contact photo.

Keith laughed and shoved him away, snatching the phone. “That was _too_ much,” he said, but his smile told Lance that everything was perfect. 

With that, Keith walked off with a wave, and Lance returned it, watching Keith’s back retreat from him. He lowered his hand, slowly, and pinched his fingers together in front of his chest. He carried a soft smile with him from that street corner to his apartment.

 

* * *

  **a p r i l 2 0 1 7**

Secretly, Lance hoped that “workout together” was a euphemism of some sort that only the sketchy, tattoo-riddled side of San Diego knew about. Was this the athlete’s version of Netflix and Chill? Lance hadn’t the slightest clue, but figured ignorance was better than over preparing and having to explain why he brought condoms with him to a gym.

Lance followed Google Maps closer to Angove. It was a bit of a haul south from where he and Hunk lived, but perhaps that was simply because he didn’t own a car to get there. The apartments gradually became taller, nicer, accented with sleek glass fronts complimented by brick arches. He whistled low at the thought of Keith living in one of these. Maybe he’d consider becoming a tattoo artist—if… he had a speck of talent, that was.

Keith just seemed too perfect to be real, and it was _infuriating_.

Lance walked up to the glass front of the gym. He stepped back a little to look up at the sign, and beyond it, the muted reflections of people running on treadmills. As he distracted himself with hoping this was the right place, the front door opened.

“Hey!” Keith said, and Lance was shocked by his chipper voice. Who was _that_ excited about working out at eight in the morning? “I asked the front desk about getting a temporary card. You get a two week test trial.”

“That sounds a whole lot like Spotify,” Lance said, following Keith inside. “You… really work out here? This place is kinda…”

“Kinda… what?” Keith said, and looked around the building as they walked to the front desk. The foyer area was decorated with layers of flat, white walls cut into three-dimensional topographical maps. If that wasn’t extra, Lance didn’t know _what_ was. 

“Rich society,” Lance blurted out. He really just meant to say “extra,” but his comment had Keith scoffing under his breath.

“It’s not too bad. And I come here every day so it’s worth it,” Keith said. “There’s more space here, too. I don’t generally have to race people to the equipment.”

As the front desk lady had Lance fill out his contact information on a form, he said, “Yeah, I guess that fits with your antisocial standards.”

When he looked up, Keith was frowning at him. Keith looked away, rubbing a hand over his arm. “Sorry—did I push a button?” Lance asked, sliding the form over the counter.

“No. No, it’s just—I didn’t think it was that fucking obvious,” he said. “And I wouldn’t say I’m _antisocial_ , or whatever.”

“It isn’t! Definitely not obvious—you don’t seem like the… type. It’s just that I feel bad because I stormed into Shiro’s bar one day and suddenly your entire flow is off.”

“My entire ‘flow’?” Keith laughed, air-quotes and all. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave a comical shrug. “And… what _flow_ is that, exactly?”

“Shut up, you know what I mean,” Lance laughed.

The lady at the counter asked if they needed lockers, and Keith suggested they just get one. He used his membership card to check out a key, and led the way to the metal bars they pushed through after scanning their cards. _Fancy_ , Lance thought again, and looked up to find Keith watching him in amusement. 

“I’m a poor college student! What do you expect?” Lance laughed, shoving Keith in the arm. “Lead the way, Casanova.”

Keith brought them to a lower floor where racket ball courts echoed through the halls. Every hit of the ball sent a _pop!_ reverberating through Lance’s ears. He glanced through the narrow square window on one of the doors, just to see what the courts looked like. He looked over at where Keith stopped to wait for him.

Keith hefted his gym bag higher. “The volleyball court is just a little farther this way.”

“Volleyball court? Wait, we’re playing volleyball?” Lance blurted out, but Keith was already walking away. Lance hurried to catch up, abandoning the sound of racketballs popping against the court walls. 

Keith pushed through the next set of glass doors, and stopped at the men’s locker room. He pointed his thumb at the door and said, “You want me to take your bag and lock it up?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lance said, and swung it off his shoulder. He tossed it to Keith, who caught it expertly before unzipping his bag. He pulled out a _full volleyball_. Lance was used to The Girls carrying their own in their workout bags, but it was still so alarming. 

Keith tossed it to Lance and turned to lock up their bags. Lance caught the volleyball, and stared at it as if it were a foreign object that just fell from space. Its surface was worn and scratched, and was an alternating weave of red and white. Lance hugged it to his chest, and wandered over to a nearby window that peered through to the volleyball court. He hadn’t been to one of these since Allura graduated and started The Lion Café.

He was suddenly slapped on the shoulder from behind, and Keith was there, pushing the gym door open. “Come on. There’s no one here so we have the whole court to ourselves.”

Lance refused to give in to the way his heart hammered at the thought. The whole court? To _themselves?_ That was just dangerous, considering practice started with stretches, which prompted Lance to stare at Keith’s exposed stomach under his shirt until his head started spinning. He looked at the ceiling and vowed that he’d lose his mind if he had to put himself through this again. It was a complete mistake. They didn’t even have a buffer between them, namely to keep Lance in line. He blamed his stupidly high heart rate for making his brain go all fuzzy, and his mouth blurt out the stupidest things. It was Pidge’s first tattoo session all over again.

Keith seemed more confused than anything, and, thankfully, started the same sort of drills that Allura forced Lance through. It meant that Lance was too exhausted to talk, but it just meant that after warmups, he realized just how out of shape he was. He missed all of Keith’s serves, and screamed and ducked at all of his spikes.

“C’mon! I thought you played volleyball,” Keith shouted at him, tossing the ball up. Lance squeaked and held his hands up in surrender, but Keith just spiked the ball at his stomach.

He went down with a groan, and collapsed on the cool wood floor. “I do play volleyball… just… for fun…”

“You don’t consider this fun?” Keith said, drilling the volleyball into the ground with swift, short hits one after the other. He spun the ball between his hands, creating friction that had Lance tensing on the ground. 

He sat up, and scowled at Keith.

“ _I’m_ not the one hitting spikes at _you_. I haven’t played in over two months!” he cried, throwing his arms down. “Not exactly fair.”

“It’s like… riding a bicycle.”

“Uh, no it isn’t,” Lance said, and forced himself to his feet. His stomach still hurt, like he was going to throw up. He held his arm over it. “And your spikes aren’t any fun. They hurt.”

“Shiro’s never had a problem with them.”

“But that’s because Shiro’s a monster,” Lance insisted. “I’m… soft, and weak.”

Keith squinted at him. His skepticism translated into a hesitant, but quick poke to Lance’s arm to test just how “soft” Lance was. Keith frowned then, and Lance took it as an insult, as one might naturally do. “Hey! Rude,” he whined, rubbing at his arm. 

Keith hugged the volleyball to his stomach and sighed. He dragged a hand through his hair, turning away, and Lance stopped to stare at the exposed slits in Keith’s cutoff t-shirt. The hem was all rolled up and frayed, and laid shadows over the tattoos marking up Keith’s ribcage. _Damn…_ Lance sighed internally, tipping his head to the side. The instant Keith turned back to him, he straightened and pretended that he wasn’t a second away from worshiping Keith’s armpits. 

“Well, this is awkward,” Keith said, awkwardly.

“Why? Because I’m not as buff as I make myself out to be?” Lance did an experimental pose, flexing his biceps. 

“No, because… I was kind of hoping you’d be a good partner. For the beach volleyball tournament next summer,” Keith said.

Lance dropped his arms in shock, and Keith kicked at the ground in annoyance. “Why me? What’s so important about it?” Lance asked dumbly, and added, “What about Shiro? He’s buff.”

“That’s the _thing_. He’s ditching me for Allura. I figured you’d be looking for a partner because… ya know. That kinda leaves you without one, too,” Keith said, gesturing vaguely at the situation.

Lance’s brain sputtered and kicked into motion. He gawked, gasped, and blubbered in annoyance. “What—? You’re kidding me! Allura _ditched me_ and she didn’t even _tell me!_ I didn’t even—That _bitch_! So much for best friends, I mean, come _on_. She spends every waking moment with the guy!”

“I know! Shiro’s barely in the apartment anymore,” Keith groaned, rolling his head back on his shoulders. “I’m just… I want to fucking _crush him_ next summer, but I know that if I do they’ll just give me a pat on the back and say ‘Good job’ like I’m a _kid!_ ”

“Wait—What about Pidge? You guys are friends—unless they’re teaming up with their brother again,” Lance said.

“Nah, they’ve already got a partner. Some guy named… Hunk?”

Lance swore he blacked out for a second, because in the next moment, he was staring at the ceiling from where he was lying disoriented on the floor.

Keith bent over him, hands on his knees. “You good?”

“Yeah, it’s just… I’ve just been _stabbed in the back_ ,” Lance said, clutching at his chest. He sniffed dramatically. “How will I ever recover from this betrayal?”

Keith held a hand out, colored in disparate tattoos of all kinds. Lance clasped onto it, and let Keith heave him back to his feet. “Well, I can’t say you’ll make the best partner—no offense—but we can work on it.”

“How do you know I’m not an awesome volleyball player? You don’t even remember me from the tournament,” Lance said. _Still bitter about it_.

Keith shrugged, picking up the ball and giving it an experimental smack to the ground. Lance flinched. “That says it,” Keith said, scoffing at him and walking away with a shake of his head. Lance scratched the back of his head, and wondered just how well he could balance school, bartending, and volleyball practice.

He’d make it work, especially if it meant seeing Keith for every practice.

 

* * *

 

Lance got back from his afternoon classes, seething, hungry from skipping lunch, but most of all, _betrayed_.

“ _Hunk!_ ” Lance roared, shoving his backpack onto the couch and storming to Hunk’s room. He heard Hunk audibly squeak in terror, and shoved open Hunk’s bedroom door to find the guy perched on his bed with Shay, who seemed disinterested in the fact that her boyfriend was about to be demolished.

“I didn’t do anything, I swear!” Hunk cried, and covered his face as Lance came at him, lunging onto the bed.

“Hey! Careful of my textbook—I sold my rib for that!” Shay yelled, and smacked the both of them so they’d sit still.

Lance curled up onto the bed, knees to his chest as he scowled at Hunk. “You’ve abandoned me for that _snake_ Pidge.”

“They’re not a snake!”

“They are too! And you abandoned me for them!” Lance moaned. “And I didn’t even know! You didn’t even tell me! I fainted when Keith told me.”

“You— _What?_ You fainted over _that_? Lance!” Hunk cried.

Lance picked absently at the comforter. “I may or may not have done fifty pushups beforehand, so I’d say that the timing was just short of perfect,” he said. “But that’s not the point! The point _is_ , is that now I’m stuck playing on Keith’s team!”

Hunk’s jaw dropped, and Shay’s pencil stopped scratching on the page. She looked up, and stared as Lance pouted into his knees, picking at a loose thread on the comforter.

“Isn’t… that a _good_ thing?” Hunk said, raising an eyebrow. 

“You’d you manage to score _that_?” Shay said. “He’s just as good as his brother, you know.”

“But I wanted to play volleyball with Hunk,” Lance said, gloomy as ever. “I miss you, buddy.”

Hunk pat him on the knee. “I miss you too, buddy, but you scored big this time. Like, _mega_ big.”

“I don’t care about the size of his junk.”

“Lance, buddy,” Hunk said, and Lance looked up tiredly. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

“ _Really?_ Are we doing this now, because I’m sitting right here,” Shay said.

Hunk smiled apologetically and turned back to Lance. “All joking aside, I think that my having abandoned you has provided you with more opportunities.”

“O Holy Saint Hunk,” Lance moaned, and rolled over Shay’s textbook on his way to the floor. She flopped her arms down in annoyance, and glared at him. He looked up like a desperate puppy looking for affection. Shay’s expression softened, and she pouted at him.

“You’ll have a lot of fun with Keith. I don’t know the guy too well, but Hunk’s told me you like him a lot.”

“I hate him,” Lance said, but they all knew that wasn’t true. The only annoyance he felt towards Keith now happened to be his irksome feelings. Stupid feelings.

“Pidge is going in to get the tattoo finalized. Are you gonna go?”

Lance fake-sobbed into the carpet. “Yes…”

“Since when did you decide rooming with an infant was a good idea?” Shay said in an aside meant for Hunk, but Lance heard it. 

“I’m an average hormonal _BOY!_ ” Lance said, yelling at the end. It turned into a fake-blubbering, and Hunk cracked up on the bed, laughing so hard he fell over Shay’s textbook. 

Despite how much Lance moaned and groaned about Hunk betraying him, he was truthfully thrilled that Keith thought highly enough of him to even _ask_. Granted, Lance was… the third choice in the matter, but he’d take third over none _any day_. And, since Lance wasn’t equipped to deal with the weekend rush of being a bartender, he had all weekend to bother Keith at the gym.

That Saturday morning, Lance woke up surprisingly stiff from the day before. He didn’t remember going _ham_ , necessarily, except… all that time he spent trying to out-run Keith… all that time trying to get _one more pushup_ than Keith… _Shit_.

He actually worked out.

Lance wasn’t _thrilled_ by this realization, especially considering he still had to drag himself out of bed to make it to the gym at their designated time. Seeing as it was the one day of the week Lance could stand to sleep in, he pushed their meet up time to eleven, and barely even made it then. He skidded in through the foyer just as the clock hit eleven O’ two. 

“Do you really sleep this late?” Keith asked from where he was lounging on one of the foyer couches. He was wearing capris pants rolled up at the him so they hugged his calves, and Lance’s eyes couldn’t help but zone in on the patch of inked skin on his ankles. Lance started to worry he had a thing for ankles and feet when Keith stood up.

“Um, not really. I’m just lazy Saturday mornings,” he confessed. “Hunk and I make French toast and watch cartoons.”

“Domestic,” Keith snorted, walking ahead and swiping his card on the machine bar. It clicked, and he walked through. 

Lance followed, stammering, “I-Is not! Weirdo, pff, as if.”

“As if _what?_ I’m not suggesting anything.”

“It was _such_ a loaded comment,” Lance groaned, trudging after Keith through the security bar, and then off down the hallway and to the stairwell. 

That day, they sprinted like their lives depended on it from the net to the baseline and back. Lance was always more of a runner than anything—contact sports made him nervous all throughout grade school—but with Keith’s speed, he was really starting to consider whether or not he was as fast as he thought. His chest burned by the end of the fiftieth lap, and the time ran out on Keith’s phone. 

“We really didn’t need to go all-out,” Keith said, panting, hands on his hips. 

“You were challenging me.”

“I was just _running_ ,” he laughed, but it was all worth it because Lance got to see Keith all flustered from running, cheeks pink, hair slicked back with sweat. 

_Totally worth it_ , Lance thought.

Practicing with Allura was one thing, but Keith was… a different experience. Allura was always the caring mother figure to The Girls (and Lance) but could be a hard-ass when she needed to be. Keith was just _constant_ hard-assery and Lance’s arms would pay for it. His knees were bruised by the end of it, but that was nothing compared to the purple spots blooming on his soft brown forearms and thumb knuckles. It felt like a sunburn seeping into his bones.

“Can’t we just, you know, practice me setting you up?” Lance complained at the end of the day, pulling off the kneepads Keith gave him for practice. He thumbed the ridges now embedded in his raw skin, and looked up at where Keith’s shirt was suddenly dropping into the gym bag and _shit_ —wrong time to look up.

Lance looked away with an accidental squeak. Sure, he saw Keith shirtless during the tournament last year, but _this was just ridiculous_. They were in a _locker room for God’s sake—put a shirt on!_

“I don’t need to practice with your sets.”

“What makes you, um, so confident about that?” Lance said, the words all but muffled around his hand as he waited for Keith to _be decent_. 

“Shiro said your sets were flawless, so I’m not worried.”

“ _What?_ He said that about me?!” Lance cried, whipping back around. Keith was tugging a baseball cap on, tank top showing off his killer biceps and shoulders. 

Keith raised an eyebrow at him and scoffed, “Geez, don’t pop a boner. Allura came over last night and we talked about you.”

Just those two sentences alone had Lance’s brain combusting. 

Lance put a hand to his forehead and said, “I think I’m losing my mind.”

Keith slung his duffle over his shoulder and said, “Well, find it and hurry up.”

Lance laced up his shoes and tucked his dirty gym clothes into a drawstring bag. He tossed it over his shoulders and tugged the strings tighter as he followed Keith out of the locker room.

Keith was… as Lance would call it, a Coffeeholic. That day, because they _had_ happened to work out so late, they stepped out into the (semi) fresh air, breathed it in, and decided that they were both hungry to fill the calories they lost. Keith suggested they get something, and so they wandered the same direction Lance saw him walk in the day before. As it was, directly across from the gym, happened to be a café riddled with all caffeinated beverages Lance could imagine. He generally stuck to the heavy stuff to get through all-nighters, but Keith was a bit more experimental.

“I come here practically every day,” he told Lance, who made a noise he hoped wasn’t condescending. He tended to think college students who actively participated in feeding Starbuck’s ego to be a bit overwhelming and loose with their money. He had to remind himself that Keith wasn’t a college student—Keith had a well-paying job, had the energy and _time_ to work out every day… He was basically one of those middle-aged mothers trying to Live Their Best Life or whatever.

So, why not spend a dime or two on caffeine?

“Have you been to Allura’s place yet?” Lance asked.

“Her apartment?” Keith said, voice dropping in annoyance and confusion.

Lance rolled his eyes. “ _Yes_ , her apartment— _No_ , The Lion Café! Who do you think I am?” he scoffed, sliding onto an empty stool by the window. Keith joined him, and dropped his duffle at his feet. It clunked heavily against the wood, and Lance was suddenly curious as to how much Keith had in there—the man carried it like it weighed nothing.

“Well, for starters, I think you’re a charismatic dipshit,” Keith said, and Lance took it as a compliment. Before he could start glowing, though, Keith added, “But no, I haven’t been. College students generally… weird me out. It’s like watching high schoolers.”

“Pretentious,” Lance scoffed. 

“A little. But I still believe that college is pointless. For degrees like mine, anyway. Waste of money to slap something on your resume,” Keith said. “All I need is a kickass portfolio.”

Lance sighed and ignorantly wished that was all he needed. His mind didn’t work the same as Keith’s did, so he couldn’t quite gasp the context of a portfolio that would get him entry into places like _Nunchi Tattoos_. Truthfully, Lance had shit handwriting, couldn’t write in a straight line, and couldn’t _draw_ a straight line without his hand shaking like mad. The thought of illustrating those fine, _fine_ lines on Pidge’s thigh were just beyond comprehension. 

But, likewise, it wasn’t likely that Keith could fathom the structure of a coder’s mind. Lance never really considered himself “top of the class” or anything like that, but he tried his best. He could have easily slopped through his classes with messy but functional files, but even if his handwriting and notes weren’t perfect, he actually _tried_ and was sometimes complimented by his professors for writing such smooth products for projects. He was a perfectionist in that way.

He wondered just how long he zoned out before a tray of food slid beneath his nose, and Keith sat beside him, holding his own plate. Lance said his thanks and picked away at his bag of chips. 

“So… computer science, huh?” Keith said, taking a massive bite of his sandwich and talking between chewing. “What’s that all about? I don’t know a fucking thing about it.”

“It’s basically that meme—like, _hacker voice: I’m in_ ,” Lance said, and laughed. “Kidding—it’s programming and shit.”

“What’s that?”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s it take to be a programmer?” Keith reiterated. “Like, what do you _learn_ , that kind of stuff.”

“Oh,” he hummed, folding a hand over his mouth as he chewed a bite of his sandwich and swallowed it down. “Um, just… like… a lot of memorizing. It’s like learning any language, really. You tell the computer what to do in its language and it spits shit back out at you.”

“Sounds violent.”

“You know what I mean,” Lance laughed. “Like, I tell the computer to find a file and open it, for a simple example.”

“Ah. I wish I was more into computers. I don’t really use my laptop much.”

Lance hesitated, staring out the window before looking at Keith’s reflection as he dove back into his sandwich and bit a chunk out of it. “You don’t…” Lance started, halting again to look at the quizzical expression on Keith’s face, cheeks full of food. “You don’t… _use_ your _laptop much?_ ” Lance said, gawking.

Keith brushed the back of his hand over his mouth and said, “What? That’s not so weird. I just use it for references and shit.”

“What do you do in your _free time?_ ” Lance gawked, now staring at the countertop. “I mean, if I’m not fucking around on Facebook or whatever, I’m doing homework on my computer. I use it literally _every day_.”

“I dunno. I just don’t really need it, I guess. I read a lot.”

“They have books _online now_ , you know!”

“I like the smell of the pages, though,” Keith insisted. “And besides, computer screens hurt my eyes.”

“You’re such an old man. You’ve got to be, like, fifty years older than me.”

“Fuck off,” Keith laughed. “And when it comes to Facebook, I don’t have one. When I moved I just sorta dropped all my social media.”

“ _Why?!_ ” Lance cried aloud, desperately, still bitter about not having gone through the Ultimate Relationship Phase of going through all of Keith’s photos online.

Keith shrugged, lips pursed. He picked up his cream soda by the neck of the bottle, and tipped it agains this lips. 

“How do you, like, stay connected to family and stuff? What about Pidge and Matt?”

“I dunno. I used to be super into it,” Keith confessed. “Just not anymore. And Shiro keeps in contact with everyone more than I ever did.”

“So are you guys, like, _actual_ brothers? You and Shiro, I mean.”

“Biologically? No, but we might as well be. My parents absolutely _love_ him, helped him out through college and everything.”

“How’d you guys meet then?”

“Babysitting, actually,” he said, cringing a little. “I hate kids but Shiro loves them. Shiro’s almost two years older than me, and so when I was little my parents would pay him to take care of me.”

“Aw, sweet,” Lance cooed, and Keith glared flatly at him.

By the time they finished eating, Lance was floating. There was something about Keith’s distance that made Lance feel _special_. Keith gave the impression that he wouldn’t just talk to _anyone_ , and it thrilled Lance to know that Keith _chose_ to hang out with him. His antisocial vibes made it all the incredible.

When they left the café and headed their separate ways, Lance caught himself smiling as he crossed the street and rounded the corner. He pushed his hands to his cheeks and dared to look back at Keith’s receding form. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find us on Tumblr :D  
> [llstarcasterll](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/)  
> [girlskylark](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)


	6. beach bod

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finals come to kick Lance's ass, and Keith's prepared to do the kicking.

* * *

  **m a y 2 0 1 7**

Lance pouted from one corner of the room as he watched Pidge steal his spot on the couch and snag his game controller. He was starting to think that his feelings for Keith were less of an enemy compared to his raw anger towards Pidge. First they stole Hunk, and now they stole his spot in Call of Duty. It was more infuriating than the way Keith made him feel. 

“Stop looking so glum over there, geez,” Hunk said, and pouted right back at Lance. “ _We_ aren’t the ones who have a project due at midnight.”

“I know, but it still hurts,” Lance sighed, frowning down at his computer screen. 

“He’s been glum all week _,_ ” Hunk whispered to Pidge, and stopped as soon as he found Lance glaring at him.

“What, did you break up with your _boy-frand_?” Pidge said.

“I did no such thing! We are still very happy together!” Lance shrieked, and it was followed by an excited gasp from Hunk.

“So you guys are dating now? Lance, I feel betrayed—you never _told me—_ ”

Lance raised a single finger and shook it. “No no, I said no such thing. Also, payback for not telling me about your plans to abandon me.”

Pidge snapped their fingers and jabbed them towards Lance’s laptop. “Ey, get back to work, fool.”

“Fine! Alright, alright, I’m goin’…” Lance moaned, and rolled away so that all he could hear was COD and all he could see was _markup_. Gross.

 

* * *

**n u n c h i :   p h a s e   t h r e e**

Finishing that project wasn’t _all_ for naught, though. It meant he was one project away from summer break, and in just a month he could kiss this all goodbye—at least… until September rolled around again. Soon, they’d be walking through the front door of Nunchi again, and be seeing Keith again outside of the gym. It became Lance’s ultimate goal to seamlessly integrate himself into Keith’s life.

He caught himself thinking this as he stood in line at a boba shop, aware that he had already committed the content Pidge provided him with when they came to the store.

“Keith’s favorite flavor is guava.”

“Guava? What’s a guava?” Lance asked.

“Fake apples,” they said. “Also, popping boba.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s a… _popping_ boba?” he asked, and was faced with Pidge’s sheer disappointment. 

At the front of the line, Pidge ordered for the three of them. On the walk, Lance carried both his own, and Keith’s drink while Pidge sipped idly away at their’s. They were wearing cropped shorts that exposed their tattoo, and Lance couldn’t help but be a little jealous of it. He wished he had that amount of confidence, and he hoped that some day he’d follow through with one of the sketches Keith laid out in front of him on Shiro’s bar.

Pidge walked slightly ahead of him at a fast pace—they couldn’t wait for the session to start.

“Honestly, real talk,” Lance started, jogging to catch up, “how do you afford the tattoos? Aren’t they, ya know… _expensive?_ ”

“Hm? Oh, shit yeah, but I work, college is paid for, and I live in a shitty, cheap apartment, so… I’ve saved up some money,” they explained. Lance silently festered over the idea of “college being paid for.” As if that ever would have happened to him in the lottery of bullshit.

They sipped away at their vibrantly orange beverage and sighed in content. “I’m not too worried,” they said. “And honestly? Keith’s giving me a discount. We’ve known each other since we were in _diapers_. That’s what neighbors are for.”

“For… knowing people when they were in diapers?”

“Precisely,” they said, and tipped their drink against Lance’s. 

The blue front to the tattoo parlor came into view, and soon, Pidge was trailing a hand across the window ledge and opening up the glass door. Lance nudged inside, both hands occupied, and smiled at the receptionist. That day, her blonde hair was wrapped up in a poofy ponytail that fell over one shoulder. She smiled, but she managed to make it look both sarcastic and genuine. 

“Pidge Holt—here for Keith,” Pidge told her.

“Yeah, gotcha down. He’s still with a customer, so he’ll come grab you when he’s ready,” she said, and so while Lance took a seat in the lounge area, Pidge pulled out their wallet. While they figured out the cost, Lance sat Keith’s drink on the end table and finally got around unwrapping his straw. The drink was sealed with a plastic layer, and after much prompting from Pidge across the room, he stabbed the straw through the plastic. The resounding _crack!_ had him jumping in his seat.

Pidge fell onto the side laughing.

“I hate you. _So much_ ,” Lance hissed at them, and partially meant it. This just made Pidge cackle harder.

About five minutes later, someone pushed aside the white curtain. Lance looked up, and watched as a stranger walked by, waved to the receptionist, and wandered out the front door. Lance’s attention drifted out the window before he recognized Keith’s voice nearby.

“I just need to clean up—ten minutes tops,” he told Pidge.

“Take your time, my dude,” they said, reaching an arm back over the couch cushions as Keith headed back to the curtain. 

He stopped to glance at Lance, who was openly staring. Every time Keith wore cut off shirts, his brain melted a little bit more. Lance’s safety was compromised by how fucking _hot_ Keith was at all times of the day.

Keith turned and left, and Lance took his silent acknowledgement as a means of hello.

“ _You_ look hot and bothered,” Pidge said.

Lance gawked at them, and lunged forward to shove them into the couch. Pidge shrieked and laughed, voice now muffled by the fact that Lance had their head shoved into a pillow. 

“Have I ever told you how much I _hate you_?” Lance seethed, and Pidge smacked him, giggling like a maniac.

When Keith returned, Pidge bolted away from Lance and disappeared behind the curtain. Lance trudged after them with a groan. Keith had his hair tied back and wrapped with a bandana, and when he pushed the curtain back for Lance, he caught a glimpse of a tattoo etched beneath his toned bicep. Lance’s knees went a little weak, and he hoped Keith didn’t see him as he stumbled over Keith’s _flawless beauty_.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Keith asked, trailing along beside Lance as they walked past half walls separating the artists stations. 

“Fine, I think,” Lance said. He held out the unopened tea and said, “Pidge and I got this for you.”

Keith stared at it for a moment before looking up at Lance with a hesitant smile. “Really? Um, well, thanks? I guess,” he said, taking the cup and the straw. He jabbed the straw against his hip a few times before the plastic broke, and he pried it out with his teeth as he dropped down into the stool. He wheeled away a few paces before hurrying back to where Pidge was propped up on the cushioned chair.

Lance’s self-control was out the window. He didn’t care how much he stared as long as he continued to do so without being called out for it. Considering Keith’s focus was anywhere but Lance at the time, he didn’t have to worry about Keith seeing and giving him a weird look. Pidge, on the other hand, continued to wiggle their eyebrows at him suggestively from where they flopped onto their stomach and exposed the side of the tattoo to Keith. 

Keith wrapped his faint pink lips around the straw and sucked in a few boba into his mouth. Lance couldn’t see it, but he squashed the popping boba against the roof of his mouth before swallowing it all down in one big gulp. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed again and turned to reach for the metal table he wheeled over. Lance could watch him drink boba tea _all day_ , without a doubt. Lance could take a three-hour long lecture on the art of Keith drinking boba and be perfectly convinced that it was a life lesson everyone needed to learn.

Lance swallowed hard and turned his wide eyes onto Pidge, who half-lidded their eyes and made a kissy face at him.

“How’s practice with your new partner?” Keith asked Pidge after setting his tea off to the side. “I heard you guys had your first practice yesterday.”

“Heard it from _who?_ ” Pidge snorted.

“Matt.”

“Ah, figures. Yeah, it was fine. I think it’ll work out,” they said, head tipped curiously to the side. “But then again, I can’t talk to you about this. I’d be _fraternizing with the enemy_.”

“Fine, then I’ll just ask Hunk,” Lance said, leaning back in the armchair as Pidge gawked at him.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Guy can’t keep his mouth shut around me,” Lance hummed, taking a casual sip of his drink before he hit the ice at the bottom and caused a ruckus. He shook the nearly-empty cup and raised an eyebrow.

“Good, huh?” Pidge laughed. “We can get some more later.”

Lance snorted. “For five bucks? Hell no. This is a once-a-week type of deal,” he said, shaking the cup again. “As if I’d pay ten bucks a day for two, five minute experiences.”

“It took you at _least_ half an hour to drink that.”

“Nuh-uh! I chugged it!”

“You did _not_.”

Lance pouted at them. 

Keith smiled to himself as he readied the tattoo gun. Lance didn’t know why, but those sterile black gloves turned him on. He determined that something must have been wrong with him. He needed to see a therapist about this weird new obsession he had with his volleyball partner wearing skin-tight black gloves.

_Help_ , Lance’s morals squealed deep down inside where Lance’s libido was burying them.

Lance wasn’t entirely sure how he survived _working out_ with the guy. At that exact moment he sat in that pristine white chair, Lance was certain that if he saw Keith sweat a drop or make any noise resembling a _pant_ , he’d die. He’d drop on the ground and commence rigor mortis without a second thought. 

He couldn’t stand it.

He stood up, claimed he needed to throw his cup out, and _booked it_ out of Nunchi without looking back.

 

* * *

 

“You haven’t talked to Keith in a week, buddy. It’s almost summer break,” Hunk said.

“Finals, you know. Exams are still a thing,” Lance muttered from where he sat hunched over at their kitchen countertop. He had his hand in his hair, barely held up by his elbow on the counter. He hadn’t properly thought about Keith since that day he ditched Pidge at Nunchi. Sure, he gave his excuses via texts, but it didn’t change the fact that his thoughts around Keith were just an existential crises waiting to happen.

“Still, you can bother to text the guy. Pidge said he’s been asking about you,” Hunk said, and Lance looked up dejectedly at his best friend. As if he’d believe that horseshit. “I’m serious.”

“No, you aren’t,” Lance said, pushing himself back. He propped a foot up on the seat to keep himself from sliding off. He crossed his arms and gave an indifferent shrug. “Keith doesn’t think twice about me. I was his _third pick_. Third pick!”

“So what? You’re _a_ pick!” Hunk said. “Who cares if you’re third or whatever. Obviously, Keith’s known Shiro and Pidge all his life, so of course they’ll get top priority. But _you?_ You’re honestly just a stranger! You were basically a stranger when he _asked_.”

Lance set his jaw tight and turned away. He put his hands over his cheeks and groaned. “What if he just doesn’t have any friends, though? I mean, he coulda asked one of his coworkers or something.”

“Lance—Lance, buddy, the guy’s been living here for a solid three months or some shit. What percentage of his coworkers even _knows_ how to play volleyball?” Hunk said. 

“He could have asked Matt…”

“Yes, but he chose to ask _you._ Now stop worrying about it and talk to the guy.”

Hunk turned away to open the oven and check on the pizza. Lance furrowed his brow and glared down at his phone. He’d been cancelling practice plans all week due to exams. Shiro gave him off to study, and he’d taken that time to actually balance school, sleep, and food like he was supposed to. It meant that he didn’t have to see Keith, too, and he didn’t have to confront the fact that he was losing his mind.

Eventually, though, he _would_ have to go back to work. He was dreading it, but that dread merged with the excitement of having an excuse to see Keith. 

He just didn’t know what to say, even as he clocked in a week later as the day ticked onwards to Saturday evening.

Before the party rush, though, Lance tried to busy his jittery hands by cleaning all the bar glasses as they came, but that would only waste a minute at a time, and didn’t stop him from seeing Keith walk in through the glass doors, and hesitate at the sight of Lance. 

It was quiet, and so Keith was the only one on his end of the bar. There was an older gentlemen talking with Shiro at the other side, and Lance caught Shiro’s eye as he paused on the way to greeting Keith. 

“How were finals? You’re done now, right?” Keith asked, voice dull as he looked up from his phone to find Lance staring guiltily at him.

“Um, yeah, they were fine. How are you?”

“Kinda pissed, actually,” he said, and Lance flinched. “I mean, I get that you’re busy and all, but you seriously couldn’t manage a single text?”

“Simple tasks overwhelm me,” Lance said, and it was a bullshit answer they both knew too well.

Keith stared at him, tucking his thumb nail between his teeth before darting his eyes towards the soda gun. Lance grabbed a glass instinctively and shoveled ice into it. “Jack and coke,” Keith said. “Heavy on the Jack.”

“Yes, sir,” Lance hummed, and did as he was instructed.

After handing the glass over, Keith tipped the edge of it to his mouth, and gulped it down. Lance eyed him warily, and then looked over at Shiro, who looked at him sternly as if to say, “I’m not letting you run away.”

The glass settled on the bar, a quarter left.

Keith swallowed hard and, with both elbows on the hard surface, said, “I’m gonna be honest here and ask who the fuck you think I am? I’m not an idiot, that’s for sure.”

“I know you’re not, it’s just—”

“Just what? Do you _like_ me or something? Is that it? Because that’s the only thing I can think of for an immature guy to do.”

Lance’s jaw dropped, and he let out a nervous, giddy laugh as he stuttered, “No! What, pff, of course not. What… made you think _that?_ ”

“Pidge has weird ideas,” he said, and Lance’s jaw dropped further. _That bastard_ … he thought.

Keith grabbed a straw from the carousel by Lance and stuck it in his drink. “Whatever. You free tomorrow morning?”

“I… Kinda have the same schedule as Shiro now,” Lance said, gesturing to Keith’s brother, who was laughing along with a customer who just walked in to share a story. “I’ll probably be sleeping in till noon.”

Keith deflated with a scowl. “That’s stupid. It gets too hot to play on the beach then.”

“Are we… playing on the beach?” Lance said, raising his eyebrow. A magnificent image floated into Lance’s head, in which the two of them were in nothing but swimming trunks. He’d get to see Keith’s abs again for _hours on end_.

“I was kinda hoping, yeah,” Keith muttered, which made Lance frown. “I burn easily, though. So it’s kinda a long shot. We need to practice on sand, though.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Lance hummed. “We could try in the evening?”

“As if I’ll have energy at that point.”

“True…”

“We’ll play it by ear. Text me when you’re free. I work most evenings now that everyone’s on break so my afternoons and mornings are open,” Keith said. He went back to his phone then, and Lance couldn’t manage much more than a faint murmur of agreement. He turned away, looking and feeling sick to his stomach. 

His heart clenched in the shock of realizing that Pidge outed him. Granted, Keith didn’t fully catch on, but _damn_ , his heart couldn’t take that. It was already withering at the memory of Keith’s contempt at the idea. So it seemed “putting himself out there” was out of the question. Keith wasn’t interested, not in the least.

Lance put a hand to his head before remembering where he was and what he was doing. One of the first rules of customer service was that he couldn’t touch his face or hair with bare hands, so he hurriedly went to wash them as Shiro wandered over.

“Your brother’s a demon,” Lance huffed under his breath.

Shiro laughed and said, “I’m surprised he didn’t explode. He’s been in an awful mood all week. He gets that way when he doesn’t have something to take his energy out on. Volleyball usually helps with that.”

“Oh, so you’re saying this is all _my_ fault,” Lance whined quietly, trying not to raise his voice when Keith was sitting at the far end of the bar. “I had _finals_.”

“I know, but texting doesn’t take that much effort…” Shiro sang, and walked away. 

Lance stared after him before turning away with a dramatic groan. He didn’t want to deal with any of this anymore. The last thing he wanted was for his heart to give out at the sight of seeing Keith sweaty and half-naked on the beach, but alas, that seemed like the only way to please the people.

So if he had to, he’d do it. No complaints.

Okay, maybe a _few_ complaints were in order.

For one, he really shouldn’t have to make excuses for not texting people back. Though, his severe lack of excuses (finals being one of them) made his “busy” schedule appear lackluster in comparison to Keith’s overall annoyance. It was disproportionate. It didn’t make sense. Why was Keith freaking out about something as little as a week gone solely to studying?

Lance’s only reasonable response was that Keith cared too much about it, and since Lance was involved in “it,” therefore Keith cared too much about _him_.

But he already determined that that was absurd, so that couldn’t be right, could it?

Lance glanced over at Keith one last time, and felt his skin jump at the sight of Keith just looking away then. The timing was uncanny, so of course Lance had to investigate how Keith really felt about him.

 

* * *

 

That night while Lance was still delirious from having worked nine long hours to the edge of two AM, Lance stood in front of his floor-length mirror without a shirt on, rubbing his stomach. He wasn’t exactly _defined_ , necessarily, but he _had abs_. They were _there_. They were just… _hiding_.

Out in the hall, Shay passed on her way back from the restroom, and paused to raise an eyebrow at Lance, who didn’t notice her until he heard her whispering to Hunk in the other room, “Your roommate’s checking himself out in the mirror.”

Lance looked at his door then, hands stilled in the midst of trying to flex his abdomen. A moment later, Hunk peered in, and yelped when he realized Lance was staring directly at him. After a split second, Hunk came into the room with his hand over his eyes, and his other hand on his hip. 

“Dude… what are you doing?” Hunk asked, voice tired. “It’s almost three.”

“Do I have abs?” Lance asked, but Hunk refused to take his hand off of his eyes. “Just look at them and tell me straight up.”

“I don’t want to do this right now.”

“Please, Hunk? It’s for science.”

“It’s for your ego and we all know it.”

“Okay, maybe it’s not for science _or_ my ego. It’s for Keith, so it’s important. Like, take a glance and say whether or not I have abs.”

After a long second, Hunk took a deep breath and peeked through his fingers. Lance lifted his hands off of his abs like he was displaying a show. He wiggled his fingers. 

Hunk took another second to decide before saying, “I don’t think you do. You’re just _toned_ , you know?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yeah, kinda. Like, you’re fit, but not _excessively fit_ , you know? You’re a healthy boy.”

“I don’t wanna _be_ healthy—I wanna be buff.”

“I don’t think you can manage that before tomorrow,” Hunk confessed. Lance’s shoulders slumped, defeated. Hunk reconsidered it. “Well, I _have_ heard that if you don’t drink water for a while, your abs become _slightly_ more pronounced.”

“Really?! _Yes!_ There’s hope!” Lance cried, fists in the air.

“I don’t remember if it was a hoax though…” Hunk hummed, tapping his finger to his chin as he turned towards the door. “Did I read that on Buzzfeed?”

“Who cares—Hunk, you’re the best. Seriously, man.” Lance lunged towards him and kissed him on the cheek. Hunk wiggled out of Lance’s clingy gasp, and ducked out of the door. 

That night (morning) Lance went to sleep in preparation for a “fun day at the beach with a guy who may or may not be the love of his life,” but who really knew. Still slightly delirious from work the night before, Lance forgot to eat when he woke up in a panic an hour before their meet up time, and all but ran out of the apartment in swim shorts (with pockets), towel, his phone, wallet, and a shirt that would later be shed under the San Diego heat. 

The beach was quiet for a Monday afternoon. His shoes walked over the gritty asphalt dusted with sand, and arrived at the first stretch of flat, constant stand. He lifted one foot up and slipped his shoe off, followed by the other, and held them in one hand as he looked down both sides of the beach. The last time he set foot on the beach happened to be the last day he worked as a lifeguard. He was relieved to be out of that job, even if his boss wished desperately for him to fork over some of his free time to sit, _baking_ under the intense sun. He might cave, but for today, he was grateful to just be a visitor on the oceanfront.

He walked down to the water before the bottoms of his feet could burn off. The sand was scorching until he touched the damp ground just outside the reach of the waves. Lance stepped into the oncoming wave, and wiggled his feet beneath the sand as the foam collected around his ankles, and receded.

Lance pulled his shirt off after a minute, and walked to a farther end of the beach that was less populated. He tucked his valuables inside the towel before headed back towards the water. His feet were now covered in sand socks that washed away the instant he submerged them, and hurried farther out into the wake. He counted to three, and fell back against an oncoming wave. 

When he reemerged, gasping for air, he looked up to find Keith standing there by his things, staring with wide, emotionless eyes. Lance blinked, sitting up, only to be knocked forward by another wave. Keith’s laughter broke through the crashing water, and then rose up when Lance finally stood, shaking his hair. 

“S-Sorry—oh my God,” Keith gasped, clutching at his stomach as he dropped his duffle. 

Lance went red, all the way up to his hairline. “Shut up!” he cried, but laughed when Keith snorted into his hand, eyes squeezed tight as he doubled over laughing. It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing Lance had ever witnessed, and it was difficult for Lance to believe that a guy decked out in hardcore tattoo sleeves could look _adorable_ until now. 

Keith didn’t recover until Lance was walking up to grab his towel.

“Y-You just looked so surprised to see me,” he explained, still giggling. He clasped a hand over his throat and cleared it. “And then—the wave—”

“Yeah, I was there,” Lance scoffed, shoving the towel against his hair. “Rub it in, why don’tchya.”

“I didn’t mean it in a _mean_ way,” he said, tipping his weight onto one foot as Lance scowled at him. Keith’s amusement turned to annoyance, and he rolled his eyes. “Whatever. No need to be a sour puss.”

“A _sour puss_ ,” Lance exclaimed with a laugh. “What are you, my _grandma?_ ”

“You know what I mean!”

“Yeah, uh-huh, _sour puss_ ,” Lance mocked.

“Shut up, oh my God,” Keith laughed, hand over his face as he walked off. He stooped down to swung his duffle up and said, “Let’s go find a spot to practice.”

Lance’s face broke out into a triumphant smile. He gathered up his things and hurried after Keith, jogging down the side of the beach until he caught up. He rarely saw Keith’s playfulness, but he took it as a positive sign towards something mutual.

Keith chose the spot, and dropped his duffle down and unzipped it. Before he even took out the volleyball, he removed a bottle of 100 SPF sunscreen. 

“You’re so damn pasty,” Lance said. “Printer paper’s got you beat.”

“Fuck you,” Keith said, grinning as he squirted some onto his hand. “You need some?”

“Fuck no, I’ve never put sunscreen on.”

“Hello, _cancer_ ,” he scoffed, and slapped the sunscreen _directly on his face_ like he was lathering frosting on a goddamn cake. It made a gross, wet, _slap_ that had Lance cringing. “You look cancer in the face and say, ‘Come and get me.’”

“I do _not_. I just don’t burn as easily as _some_ people,” Lance insisted.

“Regardless, at least I have some barrier against the deadly rays of the sun. Is your ego _really_ big enough to fight the sun? I don’t think so.”

“Then you don’t know my ego too well,” he said. He bent down and took the volleyball out of the duffle.

Keith’s face was two shades of white. “Explains your freckles.”

_Oh my God he looked close enough to see my freckles_ , Lance’s inner demon squealed as Lance slapped his hands onto his cheeks, and put a finger over his nose as if to cover them up.

“They’re fine. Don’t look so worried,” Keith laughed, shaking his head. “Let’s start with stretches.”

Despite all of the time Lance spent mentally preparing to see Keith’s abs, the guy didn’t bother taking off his shirt, even when the sun became nearly too excruciating to bear. Lance ran into the ocean more than once with Keith yelling after him, “We aren’t _done yet!_ ” Lance ignored him every time to toil around in the water, and dunk his head under with Keith scowling at him from shore. 

The third time Lance emerged from the ocean—like a majestic dolphin cresting over the water, mind you—Keith had his hands on his hips and said, “Remind me never to trust you at the beach. You’re always so distracted—I really shouldn’t have been surprised.”

“Yeah, it’s always been difficult for me to pay attention in class,” Lance confessed, tapping the heel of his palm to the side of his head. “And your spikes scare me, so that doesn’t help.”

A beautiful laugh bubbled out of Keith, and it had Lance blushing all over again. He could feel the sun burning his shoulders as Keith said, “That’s exactly why we’re practicing. You never know who’ll spike better than I do at the tournament.”

“As if.”

“I don’t know—Shiro’s pretty good. Pidge has potential, too,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “And if we’re going for my spikes as our killing blow, then it makes sense to train you for two-hit plays.”

“What do you mean?”

“I _mean_ … you save the ball and bump it high enough for me to spike. No real setting involved. We can’t depend on it, but it surprises our opponents,” Keith explained. “They expect three-hit combos most of the time, unless it gets sloppy.”

“Oh,” Lance hummed. He hadn’t even considered two-hit combos as a legitimate course of action. Allura was always adamant on the classic save, set, spike play, but maybe that was just because of her history as a coach.

Keith wasn’t exactly a coach, and he didn’t exact scorn Lance when he used his foot to save the ball (not like Allura did). So, dirty it was. 

Lance watched as Keith spun the ball between his hands and tossed it into the air. He set it, bumped it, and set it again. Lance never missed just how high Keith tended to set the ball, as if any average person would jump that high to spike it. It was the sort of gap that made spikers hesitate, wondering, “Do I go now? No, now—” He recalled how startled Allura was at the first match they saw Shiro and Keith decimate an opposing team together. 

“I know I’m not exactly… _Shiro_ ,” Lance started, wincing a little as Keith turned to look at him, letting the ball drop, “but I’m not _stupid_. I know you’re just trying to accommodate me. You won’t let me practice my sets with you.”

“So what?”

“ _So what?_ Don’t you want me to set like Shiro so you can actually hit the ball properly?” he insisted. “You’ll try to spike normally and it won’t work the same as when Shiro sets for you.”

Keith looked startled for a moment before stammering, “ _Normally?_ What do you mean by that? I spike normally.”

Lance’s jaw dropped and he hissed, “Are you kidding me? I’ve never seen anyone jump as high as you do!”

“It’s normal.”

“No it isn’t!”

“It is! Why are you fighting me on this—it doesn’t matter,” Keith snapped, ducking down to grab the ball. “We don’t need to practice spikes.”

Lance swung his arm up and slapped the ball straight out of Keith’s hands. Keith cursed at him, and kicked his foot out. He nailed Lance in the shin. “Oh, fuck,” Lance cried, and shoved Keith childishly in the arm. Keith shoved him back, and in a matter of seconds, Lance was yanking at his shirt and Keith was kicking and clawing at his hair. 

Lance staggered into the water, hand still clenched on Keith’s shirt. He yanked as hard as he could, and shoved Keith in the wave without thinking. Keith took him down with him, and they fell, screaming and thrashing in the water. 

As a kid, Lance fought his brother plenty of times, verbally and physically, and their Ma would be forced to tear them apart by the backs of their shirts, and smack them on the head with a rolling pin. In other words, he had experience, so even when his vision went black and his brain swam in his Skull Fluids, wound up pinning Keith on the sand.

He came to just as a wave raced up at them, and kicked up foam over Keith’s face. After it receded, Keith shook out his sand-covered hair, gasping, before stopping to realize that Lance was—

—straddling him.

Lance didn’t realize it at first, until Keith’s face went red, glancing down at where Lance’s legs were hooked around his hips, knees dug into the sand when the wave washed over them again. Lance looked down, and squeaked when he realized that he could _totally_ see through Keith’s shirt now.

“Shit! Sorry, oh my God,” Lance yelped, rolling off and scrambling to his feet. He busied himself with dusting off his legs so Keith wouldn’t see his blushing face. He wound up staggering, vision scattering, and slumping onto the sand to get ahold of his goddamn brain for a second.

Keith was frozen on the sand, sitting up out of the water. He stared off into the distance, clutching at his chest like Lance just shot him. 

“Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you or anything, did I?” Lance asked, the thought causing his chest to seize up. So much for _flirting_. He practically mauled the guy.

Keith cleared his throat. Lance reached a hand out to help him, but Keith slapped it away.

“I’m fine,” he said, waving Lance away. After a second, he glared at Lance and jabbed a finger at him. “ _You_ started it. Twenty pushups.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Lance sighed. 

While Lance started his punishment, Keith went and fetched the volleyball and pretended to practice when really he was staring at Lance’s backside. Keith convinced himself that he was studying Lance’s back to map out where his artwork would go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND LOOK AT THE GOOGLE DOC MARCI RIDDLED WITH COMMENTS** ](https://docs.google.com/document/d/18ks4uHixOdvul9dj1xa0r-l8sGtwf8uKtWYauNVL3SU/edit?usp=sharing)
> 
> Find us on Tumblr :D  
> [girlskylark](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)  
> [llstarcasterll](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/)


	7. drunk mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things never go right when Keith gets drunk.

Keith may have been a mystery to most, but in truth, his day revolved around a simple routine. It was more or less the same, depending on the day, but the order rearranged itself and molded to his schedule. Moving to San Diego, Keith was certain he would have to cope with being on his own at all times. After spending so much time around the people he met in university (before dropping out, that is), he expected to be lonely. He expected to hate the quiet, the calm, the safety of repetition. 

It turned out to be a nice breath of fresh air.

He came home after another night at Nunchi’s and tossed his key on the counter. He lifted one foot up so that he could unlace it, followed by the other, and promptly tossed his converse onto the tray full of shoes beside the door. Among them, he recognized Allura’s Birkenstocks, and debated calling her name instead. He decided against it. 

“Shiro?” he called out, leaning into the kitchen where a light was on. He wandered into the next door off of the foyer, the living room, and found it empty. He hesitated at the archway, and glanced out at the window overlooking the street below. He turned away and listened for the sound of the shower turning on in the nearest bedroom—Shiro’s room. 

Keith wandered over to his brother’s room and knocked before entering. It was empty, all except for Shiro’s open laptop, his clothes on the bed, and a light on beneath the bathroom door.

“Shiro, I’m home, just so you know,” Keith said, knocking lightly on the door. He put his hands on his hips as Shiro made a startled noise on the other side. Keith grinned.

“Oh! Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

“Is Allura here, by any chance?” he asked, smile widening as Shiro made hasty work of denying it. “Alright. I’m gonna go to sleep so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Keith walked off, hand in his hair as he held back his laughter. He glanced at Shiro’s laptop, and stopped instantly, nearly out of the room.

He turned back and squinted at it. He checked the bathroom door one last time before moving closer, and ducking down to glower at the name on Shiro’s Facebook messenger. Keith began scrolling through the messages. There weren’t many of them, and the few that were there were simply one-sided. 

Keith’s heart twisted in ways that constricted his throat. He recognized the sensation, and swallowed it back as he read them over against his better judgement.

 

**_Jan 6, 12:34 PM_ **

**_LOTOR:_ ** _Have you seen Keith? He hasn’t called or texted in a few days._

_Is everything okay?_

 

**_Jan 8, 4:55 PM_ **

_I went by your guys’ apartment and the landlord said you two moved. What happened?_

_Seriously I just want to talk to Keith none of my calls are going through_

 

**_Jan 9, 3:20 AM_ **

_I’m under the impression that I must have done something wrong, but it’d be helpful if I knew exactly what that was. If I hurt him, I never meant to. Please just tell him I want to talk._

_Please tell me you didn’t fucking delete your social media too Ezor and I can’t find his Instagram or Twitter._

_Stop ignoring me this isn’t a fucking game I’m worried that something happened to Keith._

 

**_Jan 10, 2:15 AM_ **

**_SHIRO:_ ** _Keith’s fine—don’t ask about him again._

_Just do yourself a favor and forget everything about him. He doesn’t want to talk to you._

**_LOTOR:_ ** _You can’t just say that and expect me to be okay with it_

_What happened? Did I do something wrong?_

_What has he told you? I swear I didn’t do anything to hurt him._

_Oh my fucking God, Shiro, answer me—I know you care about him, but I care about him too. You can’t fucking withhold this from me._

**_SHIRO:_** _Like I said, just forget about him._

_I’m not responding after this_.

 

Keith heard Allura and Shiro laugh from inside the bathroom, trying to keep themselves quiet. He looked at the door, eyes haloed in pink, and shut Shiro’s laptop. He walked out of the room, fists clenched. 

It wasn’t that he ever expected Shiro to tell him every goddamn time Lotor messaged him, but he was hurt by the realization that Shiro didn’t think he was strong enough to handle it. It was _Keith_ who canceled everything. It was _Keith_ who dealt the killing blows—blocking Lotor on everything, deactivating his Facebook, his blog, his Twitter and Instagram. He uprooted _years_ of work from the consequence of five years wasted on a guy who thought with his dick instead of his head. 

Keith shut his bedroom door as calmly as he could before collapsing on his bed and screaming into his pillow. He only ever thought of Lotor at this hour of the night if he happened to be awake, but other than that, he did a fucking _stellar_ job of forgetting the guy. It was a miracle that his and Shiro’s previous landlord was willing to let them cancel the lease, even with the pretty penny it cost them to do so. They spent a short while living at the Holts’ while sorting through apartments in the San Diego area. It all happened so fast—the new phone, the new apartment, the new job. He hated that he had to abandon all of his old clients (aside from the few he was in the process of working on. In that case, the receptionist at his old tattoo place had his new number so that she could send them his way). 

He only ever got one update from the receptionist. She was a lovely friend of his who never went to his art school, and so she never knew his boyfriend beyond a visit here or there to the parlor. She called him two days after he and Shiro uprooted their lives to say, “Lotor stopped in asking where you were. I told him you quit without notice and the boss was pissed, so all’s good on this front.”

She was about the only person in on the whole ordeal, and so Keith had been relieved that everything was fine. He wouldn’t be hunted down by an angry ex anytime soon. 

And so he settled in, got situated, and basked in the comfort of his childhood friends. Pidge was an amazing distraction from everything he wanted to keep his mind off of.

But then there was… _another_ individual that couldn’t seem to leave Keith’s mind.

Thinking about him caused Keith to lift his head from the pillow, and look across his room to his drafting table. He had a massive sheet of paper taped against the semi-raised surface, and so Keith could see the illustration as it took its form in various different shapes and sizes, sketched across the board. It wasn’t often that Keith dreamed of someone asking him to ink a person’s entire back, but he couldn’t help but picture Lance with a full back tattoo. The price would be unreasonable, and he knew Lance would never go for it, but a man could dream. 

Keith rolled off the bed, pulled his sketchbook out of his work bag, and laid it over the sketches of tumbling water. He opened up to the newest rendition of it, and wished that he could thrust it in front of Lance and ask a dozen questions about it. What colors was he thinking of? What did he think of the line weight, the shape, the texture? Would he want shading done, maybe white detailing? Could Keith turn his entire arm into an ocean of water?

Keith pulled out a pencil and a pen from one of the jars on his desk, and set to work on a fresh sheet of paper. He sharpened the graphite before brushing a hand over the page, straightening it, and drawing a faint circle. He crossed it, pulled down a narrow, rectangular polygon, and outlined the start of Lance’s jawline. 

His shoulders ached from the burn settling in. He spent all afternoon out on the beach with Lance—it was impossible for him to forget everything that happened that day after Lance pinned him on the sand like that. How could he forget it, especially when he never even considered anyone like Lance liking him at all? He hadn’t seriously flirted with anyone in over five years, and before that, he never bothered to. He was out of practice, and regretted it. If only he was confident enough to flirt with a guy like Lance. 

It was just unfortunate that Keith saw just how embarrassed Lance was by the entire incident. As if Lance would ever try _that_ again. Keith pulled on the lines forming strands of hair that framed Lance’s cheekbones, and curved up around his forehead. The soft, brunette twist of curls that stuck up there. The cute, fluffiness of his hair. The stupid crinkles on the corners of his beautiful eyes when he smiled… The freckles, the gentle, upturned nose. 

Keith dropped his forehead down on the table with a groan. He hooked his hands over the top of the raised ledge, and turned away from the sketch. 

It was pointless. He wasn’t equipped to deal with emotions like these, not after everything. He exhausted all of his romantic outlets on Lotor, and just as he thought he was on the road to a future with Lotor, he wound up at a dead end. Lance wouldn’t be any different.

Right?

* * *

 

Keith tried to tidy up his hair and failed, so it wound up tucked into a baseball cap flipped backwards. He tugged on his gross, paint-stained cutoff and decided that if he was going to bum around at Shiro’s bar, he might as well live up to it. He tugged on his converse and tapped his toes on the carpet before leaving the apartment, locking the door behind him.

The best way to convince himself that he didn’t like Lance was to simply pretend like he didn’t care. So he dressed awfully, and tried not to stare when he walked into Shiro’s bar. 

But, of course, Lance was wearing that _button-up again_. Keith didn’t know _why_ , but he suddenly found the rolled up sleeves of Lance’s black shirt too hot to fathom. And, as much as he loved Lance’s brown skin untouched by a tattoo gun, the thought of Lance in inked sleeves was the reason why Keith started to sweat.

“Hey hey, stranger,” Lance said, hand on his hip. Keith swallowed hard, and was thankful that the bar was in his way of _actually_ seeing Lance’s hips. It all just reminded him of the time Lance sat on top of him on the beach…

“Um… hey, I guess,” Keith said, clearing his throat as he sat down. 

“Something fancy?”

“Yeah, definitely. Thanks,” he said, sighing with relief. He _seriously_ needed a drink after the night he had last night. Thinking in circles around Lotor and Lance. Lotor and Lance.

Keith made a point not to look at Shiro. It was childish, he knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling like a child. Shiro probably pictured him as one anyways—why else would he assume Keith couldn’t deal with seeing the messages? He was coping fine, he was sure of it, but then again, he _was_ about to solve his problems with alcohol…

He started with hardy sips as soon as he got his hands on the cool glass of a jack and coke. He could feel Lance’s eyes on him, and made the mistake of looking. Lance’s skin was obviously tanner from the day before, and his freckles were more prominent than ever. He had a softened edge around him that made Keith’s insides turn to mush as he set his glass down to stare.

He dropped a hand on the counter. “What? Why are you staring at me.”

Lance lifted an eyebrow and said, “Nothing. It just looks like you didn’t get much sleep last night is all.”

Keith could feel his eyes aching. He knew he didn’t look too hot. He pressed the back of his hand to one of his eyes and sighed. “Yeah, well, consequences of having a brain that doesn’t shut off.”

“I… think that applies to all of us. If our brains shut off we’d all die.”

“I anticipate the sweet release of death then because not sleeping is torture,” he said, laughing a little as he took another sip of his drink.

Lance looked worried. “You okay there, buddy?” he asked, and then rolled his eyes. “God, I’m starting to sound like Hunk. But seriously, what’s up?”

Keith put a hand to his head and sighed. _You aren’t trying to woo him. Telling him won’t destroy anything_ , he told himself. Keith glanced down the bar to where Shiro was tending to some of the customers. He looked occupied, and so Keith turned back to Lance. 

“Something came up last night that I wasn’t expecting,” he confessed, and then backtracked. “Wait, no, I was always just sort of waiting for something like this to happen ever since we got here, but—”

“What, do you not like San Diego or something?”

“No, I love it here,” Keith insisted, shaking his head. “It’s just… there’s this whole reason why we up and moved away just like that. It all happened in… honestly, it happened in a day, really.

“I… Well, when I was in high school, I met this guy over the internet,” he explained. “I was, like… fifteen? Anyway, when we both graduated we were super into art and so _obviously,_ because society demands it, we went to college for it. And we basically dated all through that whole shitshow except for this one break we had around the time I dropped out. It all felt pointless—college, I mean—but he stayed in. He’s a junior now, almost a senior.”

“What… happened? I’m assuming you two aren’t together anymore, then,” Lance said.

“No, we aren’t. That time we broke up he got together with this chick from Arizona who’s studying something like marine biology. I don’t really know. But back in January I went over to his apartment one morning… It was supposed to be one of those days where we’d stay in, play video games, stuff ourselves with French toast or whatever the fuck. And I… went into his room, and he was there. With the chick from Arizona.”

Keith took a gulp of his drink, finishing it off as Lance stared at him. When the glass was empty, he went to refill it without hesitating. 

“So what happened? Did you throw something at him? Maybe something expensive like his game console?” Lance asked, and Keith laughed, grateful for the humor.

“No. He didn’t notice me—they were both passed out—so I left my key to his place on the counter, walked out, called Shiro, told him the whole ordeal. I blocked the guy on my phone, deleted everything, and Shiro was already sort of hoping to move back to San Diego so we got a U-Haul and packed everything up.”

“Damn, that’s cold,” Lance said, and grinned. “But cool. I’m glad you didn’t stick around to hear his excuses.”

“So am I.”

“So what brings you here all upset?”

“What? I’m not upset,” Keith said sharply, straightening up. He glanced over at Shiro again, and reassured himself that his brother wasn’t listening. “I just… Last night I snooped on Shiro’s Facebook and—”

Lance gasped, and Keith glared at him.

“—And I saw that my ex tried contacting him on Facebook. There were a few recent messages between them, but mostly it was Shiro ignoring him. I just don’t get why Shiro wouldn’t tell me. Like I can’t handle shit like that. It’s degrading.”

“He’s probably just trying to protect you.”

“From what? I moved to fucking San Diego to avoid that prick. As if I’d cave after doing something like that,” he insisted, and took another long drink.

“I know, but… it can still hurt just thinking about them. Shiro probably doesn’t want to do that to you,” Lance said, reaching down to pick up a towel off the sink ledge. Keith clenched his teeth together as he met Lance’s eyes. “He’s probably hoping to keep your mind off of it.”

Keith’s brain was kicking up curses and swearwords as he watched, eyes wide, as Lance’s gaze dropped a little lower than Keith’s eyes. _He’s looking at my lips. He’s totally looking at my lips_. In a panic, unsure what to do, Keith _licked them_ and internally cursed some more when Lance blushed. 

Lance didn’t work the evening shift, so Keith waited out front by the street corner where he could see The Lion Café across the way. When Lance came around from the front door, Keith strode up to him without wasting a second.

“Tell me if I’m being too forward,” he demanded, and ignored the shock on Lance’s face when he pulled Lance by the shirt, and pushed their lips together. So much for pretending he didn’t care. Keith’s life tended to change in a day, and that time on the beach was a turning point. History showed that he had 24 hours to make the change. 

He pulled away, panting, and stared at Lance to gauge some kind of reaction. Lance closed his mouth, swallowed hard, and that deep tan flushed red. 

“Not forward at all, nope,” Lance said.

“Good.” Keith pushed in closer, and kissed the living daylights out of Lance. He _definitely_ wasn’t equipped to flirt, but Keith always did know how to be obvious. 

When Lance put his arms around Keith’s waist, he thought he might die. A shudder coursed up his spine and reminded his brain to forget how to stand. He wrapped his arms around Lance’s neck, and pulled away to breathe. After a few moments of recovering, he said, “Where’s your apartment?”

He didn’t realize he was drunk until he started walking again, and convinced himself that it was because he was with Lance, and _definitely_ not the five drinks Lance served him.

Thankfully Lance’s apartment wasn’t all that far away. After stumbling into the elevator, Keith leaned against him and nuzzled his nose into Lance’s neck. He breathed in the scent of Lance’s citrus cologne and tried to taste it as he laid sloppy, open-mouthed kisses across Lance’s skin. He listened for the delicious, restrained groaned leaving Lance’s mouth as the elevator opened and he had to clear his throat to say, “It’s just around the corner.”

Lance got his key out and fiddled with the lock. The room was quiet on the other end, but Keith tried his best to be silent as he wandered in after Lance and shut the door behind them. Lance reached around him to lock it, and hesitated when Keith held onto his shirt tight and stood there, staring at Lance’s profile.

Lance turned to him, startled, and stopped after a moment to pull Keith’s hand away and lead him across the apartment. They went to a short hallway, and to a plain bedroom riddled with clothes strewn across the floor, and books over the desk. 

“Sorry it’s so messy—I don’t get much time to clean, so—”

“It’s fine, I don’t care,” Keith said, and tried pushing Lance to the bed, but Lance grounded his feet and took Keith’s hands off of his shoulders. “Come _on—_ ”

“Wait, Keith,” he said, and Keith hesitated at the sound of his name rolling off Lance’s tongue like that. He didn’t know _what_ he wanted aside from Lance in general, and he demanded to know why it wasn’t happening right this second. 

Instead of fighting Lance, though, Keith waited, and regretted looking up at the pity in Lance’s eyes. He should have expected it, but he couldn’t anticipate the way he reacted in turn. His throat twisted shut, and he tried to swallow the knot down as Lance said, “I don’t—I don’t think I can do anything when you’re drunk like this. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

Keith clenched his teeth shut, and ground them together as he turned away. His hands were still caught between Lance’s, pressed to Lance’s chest. “Why didn’t you fucking _say so_ earlier?” he hissed, trying to pry his hands away. Lance held on, though.

“I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking. But I—I mean, you should just stay the night. I don’t mind.”

Keith was too furious to speak words, and any thoughts that came into his head combusted the instant Lance let go of his hands to wrap his arms around Keith. He let out a shaky sigh against Lance’s shoulder. He bunched Lance’s black shirt up in his hands as Lance settled them on the edge of the bed, and helped Keith lay down. Lance tried to untangle Keith’s fingers, but Keith wouldn’t have it, and so Lance gave up and laid beside him, still dressed in his work clothes. 

The day was on the verge of dusk, and Keith’s body was convinced that it was three in the morning, and he made a dozen bad decisions to get where he was now. He let himself nestle into the arm Lance had wrapped around behind his head, and continued to hold on tight to Lance’s shirt as he closed his eyes. He didn’t even care that he was still wearing his converse, but Lance went ahead and pulled off Keith’s baseball cap.

“Don’t… my hair is gross today…” Keith moaned. 

“It looks fine. Now stop talking—sleep it off,” Lance insisted, and pulled his fingers out of Keith’s hair to lay them over his arm, and rub the worries away.

It was always a bit strange sleeping in a bed that wasn’t his own, but somehow, he managed to fall asleep. Perhaps it was the soft, lulling aroma of Lance’s citrus cologne, or maybe the fluffy quilt Lance pulled over him. Whatever the case, he didn’t wake up again until the morning when he felt someone tugging at his fingers where they were still bunched up in Lance’s shirt. Keith blinked awake, and, startled, bolting up before Lance could even tell him to calm down.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed, hand going to his head. He stared at Lance, who was just trying to untangle himself to get out of bed and get ready for class. “ _Shit_ , oh my God, I’m so fucking—Unbelievable. Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Keith blurted out, scrambling over Lance to topple onto the ground and get his shit together. 

“Dude, it’s, like, seven in the morning. You can keep sleeping if you want,” Lance said, but Keith was out of the door. Lance cursed and ran after him, ducking out of the room as the door nearly shut on his ankle. He grabbed Keith by the back of his shirt, and yanked him back. The kitchen light was on, and Hunk was out there making breakfast. Shay was sitting at the counter and heard them. 

Without looking back at them, Keith very clearly in the hall with Lance behind him, hand clasped over his mouth, Shay said, “Mornin’ Lance, how was work?”

Lance hurriedly shoved his door open and pushed Keith inside. “It was good!” 

“Did you have dinner? I didn’t see you come back,” Hunk said.

“I wasn’t all that hungry. I had something at work,” he said with a wave of his hand. Shay looked at him, smiling innocently in the hallway.

“You’re still in your work clothes,” she said, and tipped her head against her hand as Hunk turned around to see. Lance could feel his pits start to sweat. 

“Yeah, I was just so exhausted last night. I’ll be out in a minute,” he said, and retreated to his room. He opened the door just wide enough to slitter through, and shut it so that he could look at Keith, who had his hands twisted around in his grimy cutoff paint shirt. Lance had never seen him look so horrified.

“I’m so fucking sorry this happened,” Keith said.

“No, it’s fine—”

“I shouldn’t have done that to you. Oh my God, I felt you up and everything—”

“You— _What?_ You didn’t feel me up.”

“I probably did—I get handsy when I’m drunk. You just didn’t notice it or something.”

Lance’s jaw dropped, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Keith, seriously, you did _not_ feel me up.”

“I forced you to do things you didn’t want to do.”

“Oh my God, this isn’t a fucking hostage situation, Keith, alright? It’s _fine_ ,” Lance said, sharply, and Keith was so sure he was about to pass out. His stomach hurt from skipping dinner, and there Lance was, yelling at him and probably grossed out by his weird drunken habits. 

Lance put a hand over his face and groaned. Keith swallowed hard to fight back the knot in his throat again, and looked away when Lance turned back to him. “I need to get ready for class, but afterwards you can just use my bathroom for whatever. Feel free to take a shower or something. Shay will leave soon, and then Hunk works on homework in his room until nine. You can sneak out sometime around then.”

“O-Oh, um, okay,” Keith said, and looked after Lance as he wandered to the only other door in the bedroom. While Lance changed in the bathroom, Keith stared at the bed, and after a moment of debating it, he crawled back under the quilt. The night before, he remembered feeling so at home. But now? Now, he was just a stranger in a stranger’s apartment after all the mistakes that brought him here.

Lance lathered foam over his cheeks and neck. As he grazed his shaver up his neck, he looked at himself in the mirror and fretted over how Keith reacted this morning. He ran the blade through the water and tapped it on the side of the sink. He braced a hand on the counter ledge, and pulled himself together. So what if Keith didn’t like him? Clearly, he saw all of this as one big mistake—why else would he look so horrified to find himself in Lance’s bed? 

_Just forget thinking about him romantically. We can still be friends, right? Just friends_ , he told himself, and went back to shaving while Keith argued the same exact thing under the covers, trying not to break down from the embarrassment and dreadful distain of winding up drunk in his crush’s bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. SO. I haven't been doing well, mostly because I haven't been able to write, which is, like, my Outlet For Feelings. Hopefully, though, since next week is spring break and I'll have an actual BREAK for ONCE, things will get better. I'll defs post more then because I plan on finishing this soon anyhow :D
> 
> Wish me luck *groans miserably as I flop onto my bed*  
> [My Tumblr](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)  
> — click the nifty purple button if ya like my work or want to request something :D  
> [Marci's Tumblr with nifty art :)](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/)
> 
> (Also, my absolute favorite trope is ex-boyfriend Lotor, in case you haven't noticed lol)


	8. pick that shit up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A GAME OF PICK UP STICKS, INSECURITIES, AND CALLING KEITH AN ADDICT.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was probs my fav chapter to write, and you'll see why XD

“So you see? He hates me now! He told me his deep dark secret, I got him drunk, I let him kiss me, and then I let him sleep in my bed! If that doesn’t say ‘taken advantage of,’ I don’t know _what_ does,” Lance exclaimed from the counter where Allura was pulling espresso shots and cranking it into the machine. She nudged a glass underneath it and pressed the button that let water soak into the beans, and come out rich and brown on the other end.

“Well, what’s his deep dark secret?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you. It’d make the situation ten times worse. The best I can do is keep _that_ a secret,” Lance said, and draped over the counter dramatically with a groan. “Being gay is too difficult. Can I go back now?”

“Back to what?”

“Back to being in love with you. Life was so much easier,” he moaned, and Allura burst into laughter. She laughed like a suburban mom, and Lance managed to smile because of it. 

When she settled down again, she said, “Lance, hun, I’m not gonna push you to do anything, but it sounds like Keith’s just embarrassed. I’d try talking with him about it.”

“Yeah, same here, but he won’t answer any of my texts or calls.”

“How many times have you _tried?_ ”

“Like… seven times…”

“Goodness sakes, Lance.”

“I know, I have a problem,” he moaned. Lance looked away to pout some more, somewhere other than directly at Allura. He couldn’t stop thinking about Keith’s ex, whoever that mysterious stranger was. He imagined that Keith’s ex looked like… a mix between a professional athlete and a Calvin Klein model, so clearly, Lance was a downgrade. Keith couldn’t _settle_ for a downgrade.

Lance didn’t even have abs to fall back on.

The Lion Café was busy that day, and so Lance left Allura to her work. He went to the nearest open table, and pushed his backpack onto it before any of the greedy freshmen walking in could claim his spot. He wished he could be sitting across from Keith right about now. He wished he could share a couples’ malt with Keith. He didn’t want to work on homework and suffer through the fact that Keith didn’t want him as much as he wanted Keith.

Lance rubbed his hands over his eyes, clearing away the frustration and the exhaustion. 

“Lance?” a familiar voice spoke up from across the café. Lance looked up, and spied Shay’s short, curly brown hair not far away. 

Lance saw her that morning, and was surprised to find her here, of all places. Granted, she was friends with Allura, but Shay always reprimanded Lance and Hunk for endorsing places that sold overly expensive drinks (i.e. Starbucks). Still, Lance was grateful for the distraction Shay provided, and eagerly gestured for her to join him.

She collapsed into the chair across from him, swinging her backpack down beside her. 

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting to see you,” Lance said.

“Neither was I! But here we are. And… I actually wanted to talk to you about something,” she confessed, and Lance rose an eyebrow. That didn’t sound good. “Just… give me a sec to think through it. I’ve been meaning to talk to you, but I just don’t know how to word it.”

“Take your time.”

Shay looked down at her hands, looking over to the baristas, waiting for her drink. Eventually, she cleared her throat. “Do you think… Is Hunk happy with me? Like, I feel like we aren’t the same anymore.”

“You don’t have to be the same.”

“I know, I know. But… it’s been ages since we were in that honeymoon phase. I feel like we were more ourselves then,” she confessed. “I’m just afraid that I’m sticking around for normalcy’s sake. You know? Because we’ve been together so long… _being_ together is normal.”

Lance’s brain shut down. He wasn’t equipped to deal with giving advice, and this was _Hunk_ they were talking about. Hunk, the guy he lived with, the guy who he considered to be a best friend. The last thing Lance wanted to do was unintentionally break Hunk’s heart.

“I don’t…”

“But you’re his best friend, what do you think?”

“Well, I mean, I _am_ his best friend, yeah, but I don’t know what would make him happier! Hunk adores you!” Lance exclaimed, and Shay shrunk back. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “What’s the issue? I mean, do you still like him? Because if you don’t, then—”

“I do like him, but I’m starting to think that we’d be better off as friends,” she confessed, rubbing the tip of her finger beneath her eye. She tugged at the purple spots there and sighed. “I just feel like we have more fun together when we aren’t breathing down each others necks constantly. Maybe I should just… stop staying over at your guys’ place so much. I probably get in the way…”

Lance never thought that, but then again, he liked having people around the apartment. Having Shay there was, quite honestly, a relief from his own mind. He distracted himself with whoever happened to be there at the time, whether it be Shay or Hunk. He got used to having her around.

“I don’t think you get in the way,” he confessed, shaking his head. “Honestly I… really like having you around. The place gets quiet when you aren’t there, and you keep us in line.”

“That just makes it sound like I’m your mother,” she groaned. “And you’re always doing stupid shit so I _have_ to tell you when to stop.”

“Yeah, that’s accurate.”

“Do you think… maybe you could talk to Hunk about it?” she asked, wincing as she said it. She twisted her hands together on the table. “I’m just… worried that I’ll open a can of worms that doesn’t need to be opened. So could you just… test the waters for me? See if he’s thinking the same thing as me?”

“Well, even if he isn’t, you should talk to him about it. If it’s really gnawing at you, Hunk’ll understand. You know he will,” Lance insisted. 

Shay’s name was called out from the counter, and so she got up to retrieve her drink. Lance set his laptop up while he waited, and when she came back, she seemed calmer with a drink in her hands. She slurped up the foam at the top of the mug and smiled at Lance with her white mustache. Lance giggled and reached out, as if to smear it off. She batted his hand away.

“Do you mind if I stick around here with you?”

“By all means,” Lance said. “I’m just working on homework.”

They coexisted like they always did back at the apartment, and Lance found himself thinking about life without Shay. She fit so seamlessly into Lance’s routine because she had always _been there_. Since he was a freshmen he knew her, and how much Hunk adored her. Lance could also agree that he tolerated Shay better than he did Pidge.

So there was that.

When he thought about Shay and Hunk’s relationship problems, he started to think of Keith, and crumbled all over again. He frowned at his computer screen, and looked up to Shay. She was intently highlighting a printout with fluorescent pink ink. _No harm telling her_ , he thought.

“Hey, Shay…”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

Lance frowned at his hands and said, “Since we’re confessing things and all… Keith stayed the night last night.”

Shay’s highlighter paused. It lifted off the paper, and was set gently on the table so that Shay could clasp her hands together, purse her lips, and stare at Lance. Lance shrunk further and further in his chair with each passing second, so that by the time he admitted the next part, he was practically on the ground.

“I shouldn’t have let him stay the night… because… I underestimated how much of a lightweight he is… and got him drunk at work…”

“Lance…”

“This is by far the shittiest thing I’ve ever done. We didn’t _do_ anything, but we might as well have considering the way Keith looked at me this morning!” he moaned, wiggling back up in his chair to pout. “He’ll never like me now…”

“Oh my God,” Shay breathed, completely blown away by the realization that Keith had been in Lance’s room that morning when Lance bolted out in his work clothes from the night before. 

“I know…” he whined.

“Lance, why did you bring him here in the first place?” she asked, eyebrows up to her hairline as Lance merely frowned and stared up at her with woeful puppy eyes. “Oh my God, Lance…”

“He made out with me on a street corner and then we wound up at the apartment.”

“Oh my God, Lance… No…” Shay moaned, dropping her head forward onto her book. Lance covered his face with his hands. “Oh God, Lance, don’t be embarrassed…”

“How can I not be? I just _ruined_ every chance I had with Keith!”

“No, Lance, honestly—”

“He probably _hates_ me now!”

“Lance, just shut up for a second please,” she said, waving her hands in the air to clear away whatever gloomy mood Lance put them in. “I don’t know Keith very well, but I honestly don’t know that many individuals who would kiss anyone or anything when drunk. Even drunk, Keith’s gotta have some kind of restraint. If he hated you before this, he would _not_ have kissed you.”

Lance kept his hands over his face. Heat swelled in his cheeks, and he tried to push it back by placing the backs of his hands over his cheeks. He stared at Shay, pained.

“I think Keith seriously likes you. You’d have to ask Pidge for a second opinion because they know him better, but… I just think he’s embarrassed. _You_ should _not_ be the embarrassed one here. Keith consciously got himself drunk, kissed you, and wound up in your apartment. I can’t even imagine how humiliated he must feel.”

The guilt surged forward, and Lance fake-sobbed until Shay asked him what was the matter? He sniffed and said, “I should have comforted him…!”

“Jesus Christ, Lance,” she said, slapping her hands on the table.

 

* * *

**j u n e 2 0 1 7**

The next afternoon Lance worked, Keith didn’t show. He didn’t show the next time, either, and ignored all of Lance’s attempts to repair whatever fell apart in their relationship earlier in the week. He tried to bring it up with Shiro, but Shiro just shrugged and said, “I haven’t noticed anything weird with Keith. It sounds like he’s been working a lot. You know, summer rush. Kids being stupider than usual and getting more tattoos.”

“I dunno if ‘more tattoos’ is synonymous with ‘stupider.’”

“Sometimes I think so,” Shiro said, and laughed when Lance rolled his eyes. “I’m kidding. Keith’s a smart kid—I’m glad you’re worrying about him.”

Lance sputtered, alarmed by the accusation. “I’m not—! Stop accusing me of things I’m not doing!”

“It’s not a bad thing!”

“Shut up! Oh my God, get away from me!” Lance said, hurrying to the other side of the bar while Shiro held his hands out, confused, and the customer near them burst out laughing. 

Lance crossed his arms and glared at Shiro. Shiro shrugged and went back to work, grinning to himself. It gave Lance the distinct sensation that Shiro knew something that he didn’t, and he was determined to know. Still, he could understand why Keith would continue as if nothing happened. Shiro was the culprit behind part of it, and it was entirely the reason why Keith wound up at the bar to drink his worries away. Lance didn’t want to go so far as to say it was _all_ Shiro’s fault, but of course his brain went there, and stayed there, and it was now the reason why he continued to be cross with his boss.

Sometime before the rush, Lance snuck into the back room and popped open a ziplock bag from his jacket pocket. He pushed himself up onto the counter and munched on his sandwich, scrolling through his phone. He opened up his chat with Keith for the fifth time that day and sighed. They were all marked as “Read” which meant that Keith was just being an asshole at this point.

 

 

**Lance:** Stop being so emo for a split second   
If you’re so pissed at me then does this mean we aren’t partners anymore?

**Keith:** I’m not pissed at you

**Lance:** HE SPEAKS

**Keith:** Fuck off, shithead jesus fuck

**Lance:** Are you still hungover

**Keith:** What? No, it’s been two days.

**Lance:** So you remember

**Keith:** Fuck of course I do stop being such an asshole for once

**Lance:** I am not an asshole! You’re the asshole!   
I’ve been texting you and you never respond. What gives? So what if you passed out at my place I don’t care

**Keith:** You don’t?

**Lance:** Wow that’s a loaded question  
Dude it’s fine and just to be clear you did NOT make me do anything that I didn’t want to

 

 

Lance frowned at the “Read” notification on his message. He finished off his sandwich and bunched up the baggie just as his phone buzzed, and continued to buzz in his hand until he looked down and realized that Keith was calling.

“Shit!” he squeaked, clasping a hand over his mouth as he leapt off the counter and paced for a hot minute before answering the call, hand on his hip, and smiled at no one in particular. “Hey! I’m kinda at work right now but—”

“ _Did you want to kiss me?_ ” 

“Keith! Oh my God, personal question, man,” Lance exclaimed, fanning himself as he paced the empty backroom. “I’m at work right now buddy so maybe we can talk about this later?”

“ _But I kissed you and you said I didn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to_.”

“Dude, don’t make this weird—oh my God—I’m sorry if me reciprocating wasn’t what you wanted—”

Keith was silent for a moment, and Lance’s voice flickered out. He waited for Keith to say something, at which point Shiro appeared in the doorway to call him back. Lance jolted a hand up to stop him, and gestured wildly to the phone and mouthed Keith’s name to him. Shiro’s eyes widened before he gestured, “ _Five minutes, tops_.” Lance gave him a thumbs up, and Shiro walked away smiling.

“I gotta get back to work soon,” Lance said. “Shiro just came in to scold me.”

“ _I… Sure, yeah. I just… maybe this whole fuckin’ volleyball thing just isn’t gonna work out. I fucked things up. Sorry, Lance_.”

Lance tried to say something, but the line popped and cut out. He said Keith’s name and looked at his screen, concerned as he watched the line go dead in his hands. “ _Fuck_ , that idiot _scumbag_ ,” he seethed, dialing Keith’s number again and waiting furiously for the guy to pick up.

“Lance?” Shiro called out from the bar, heading to the backroom. “Is everything okay with Keith? What happened?”

“ _God_ , I’m so fucking pissed at him right now. He just ditched me!” Lance said, and was just as surprised as Shiro to feel and see his eyes turn red, burning up. “He won’t pick up. Shiro, he won’t pick up—”

“Whoa, hey, just forget about Keith for now. Take a deep breath,” he said, voice sharp. The order wasn’t lost on Lance. He set his phone down and breathed in through his nose, and exhaled. “Good? We can talk about Keith later. Right now, we have customers waiting and the rush is coming in. It’ll take your mind off of him for now.”

“Yeah, okay. That sounds good,” Lance said, taking one last deep breath before shaking his head. 

Forget about Keith.

For now.

 

* * *

 

“I’ve never felt this angry _ever_ ,” Lance said, seething with a spoon clenched in one fist, and his phone in the other. He shoveled in a mouthful of cereal to shut himself up. 

“What about that time you—”

“No. Nothing compares,” he hissed, jabbing his spoon in Hunk’s direction. Hunk nodded, still uncertain about it. Lance scowled at him and then down at his plate. “I’ve been meaning to check out Keith’s place, see if he’s there. Shiro says he’s staying with Pidge. Has been for a few days.”

“Huh, strange.”

“Do you… know where they live?”

“Lance… No. Big fat no.”

“No, Hunk, you’re supposed to say, ‘Big fat _yes,_ ’ and then give me their address.”

“Have you maybe thought about how much you’re tormenting the guy? Did you say you sent him, like, thirty texts?” Hunk said, and Lance gave him an exasperated look. Of fucking course Hunk would think that was out of line. “And so what if you’re not in the tournament? Like, there’s always next year for that.”

“But the tournament was gonna be, like… _Our_ Thing. We were gonna bond and be bros and kick ass, you know?” he insisted, and Hunk gagged a little at the word “bond.” 

“As much as I want you and Keith to be bros or whatever… maybe it just wasn’t meant to be? Keith’s cool and all but I never really thought he was the guy for you,” Hunk confessed, and Lance lowered his angry fists. Hunk turned away, scratching the back of his neck. “I mean, you’re so expressive and exciting and Keith is really… _reserved_ and _introverted_.”

“He’s an artist, what do you expect?”

“It just sounds like you’re romanticizing the guy a little is all I’m saying. He’s just a _guy_ , you know?”

“We’re all just _people_ , Hunk, but I like some more than others, alright?” Lance huffed.

“So you like him?”

“You know I do, buddy.”

“Aw, bro, you wanna date him?” Hunk said.

“I mean, I guess? I dunno. Whatever happens, happens I guess,” Lance said.

“Bro, don’t play me like that. You wanna date?” he said, and Lance got the distinct impression that Hunk was talking to a dog about walks instead of a grown college student with social anxiety.

Lance ducked his head between his shoulders and pouted. “Maybe…?”

“But—”

“Friends and benefits would be cool, too,” he confessed, straightening up instantly. “I mean, like, I’ve always wanted to try that. How many people try that, do you think?”

“I don’t like to think on it too much. Not exactly a topic that’s in my head very often.”

“Right, right. But, like, on _average_ , how many college students do you think have been in a benefits situation before?” Lance said, and Hunk rolled his eyes. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. I feel like you shouldn’t bring this up to Keith.”

So, of course, Lance plotted to bring this up to Keith. It would be the first thing he’d bring up—might as well get it out of the way, right off the bat, no horsing around. Lance just wanted answers to a question that Keith just wasn’t comfortable with, but maybe making the whole situation casual would lighten the mood? Lance didn’t trust his thought process on many things (computer science included), but he was certain that this was now the only way to go about talking to Keith again. 

But first… he needed to find Keith.

On the way to work that day, Lance thought to himself, _The guy just got out of a relationship (sorta). He probably doesn’t want another one._

_Maybe he just misses having someone around_ , he rationalized. _Shiro doesn’t really count. Keith needs, like, something physical, right? He just went cold turkey on snuggles._

_Oh, shit, I don’t know if I could do that_ , he realized, and it solidified his reasoning. Keith was struggling with the cold turkey snuggles. 

He considered this as he walked in through the back door of the bar and shed his coat. He hung it up in the hallway closet and thought, _He went cold turkey on kisses, too. That poor, heartbroken boy—_

“—gonna go before he gets here.”

“Come on…”

“I’ll see you tonight. Thanks for the drink.”

Lance couldn’t believe how fast he perked up, or how fast he sprinted out of the hall, through the back room, and after Keith’s retreating voice. He caught the tail end of Shiro saying something, but was interrupted by slamming the backroom door into Shiro’s back on his way through.

“Shit!” Lance shrieked as Shiro all by screamed and fell against the counter. The glasses rattled where his legs hit the ledge of liquor bottles.“Oh my God, I’ll apologize to you later—”

“Holy fuck, Lance—” Shiro gasped, out of breath as he clutched at where his hip rammed into the counter.

Lance caught Keith’s eyes for a split second before Keith turned and ran for the front door. 

“ _Stop right there, heathen!_ ” Lance screamed, lunging over the bar counter hinge, punting a cup of straws straight across the bar. They flew everywhere like firework sparks as Lance ran, fully intending to tackle Keith if he had to. 

“No running! Oh God,” Shiro cried, hands in his hair as Keith tried the front door and realized it was locked. He turned and ducked away from Lance, who skidded and slammed straight into the door. 

Lance’s brain rattled in his skull.

“Are you okay?” Keith said, but Lance was seeing double before realizing that he was staring straight at Keith, and Keith was staring straight at him—

“I… I feel like…” Lance started, clutching at his head. Keith’s eyes widened as Lance pretended to sway, and reached out for him… _Gotchya_.

The instant he could, Lance snatched Keith’s hand out of the air and grabbed hold tight. He wouldn’t let go until Keith gave up squirming while Shiro struggled to pick up straws from the counter.

“You went cold turkey,” Lance said as Keith yanked on Lance’s wrist to try and get him off.

“What the… the fuck? I’ve never been addicted before—”

“On snuggles,” Lance said, and Keith jabbed a foot up and heaved it against Lance’s hip. He gave out a little, but otherwise stayed standing. “Be my snuggle buddy benefits,” Lance said. “We can snuggle all you want and you won’t have to be embarrassed by it.”

“ _What!_ Fuck, Lance, let me—let me _go!_ ” Keith snarled, growling as he got hold of one of Lance’s fingers and yanked it back.

Lance shrieked like a newborn bird lunging from the nest for the first and last time before hitting the ground on his knees. 

Keith stepped away as Lance curled up on the ground and moaned. He looked, panicked, at Shiro, who had straws in both hands, frazzled by everything that just happened. After a hot second of listening to Lance recover from the temporary shock of ramming face-first into a glass door, Keith hurried around the bar and, as he passed Shiro, said, “Later. We’ll talk later.”

“Right, okay,” Shiro said. “Have fun at work.”

Keith was already gone, half-jogging out through the back hallway. When Lance was finally off the floor, he looked around and found that Keith had disappeared, and he was left alone with Shiro to clean up the literal mess at the bar before the doors opened for the day.

He slumped over to where straws were strewn across the floor, and started collecting them with a pout on his lips. Eventually, he looked up to find Shiro leaning over the counter to stare at him. Lance frowned and turned soured in a matter of seconds.

“What? What’re you looking at?” Lance whined, scrunching up the straws in his fist and slapping his other hand over a patch of fallen straws.

“I just… am amazed, really,” Shiro said.

“Fuck off. Sorry for breaking your back earlier,” Lance said.

“I’m only a little paralyzed. Keith told me what happened,” he said, and Lance went back to crunching straws in his angry fists. He stood up and gave Shiro a dull look before walking around the bar to toss the straws in the trash. “Give him some time to cope, alright? He doesn’t… need you _literally_ hurting yourself over this. Is your face alright?”

Lance rubbed his nose, scowling all over again. “Kinda hurts, but I’ll survive. I don’t know if I can survive this heartache, though.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Shiro laughed, and Lance tried to grin even though he left his confidence on the floor back by the front door. “Keith will get over himself eventually. The whole… thing with his ex hurt him more than either of us realized. Everything with the… messages and the other night opened it up.”

“Oh,” Lance said, rubbing at his chest as he wandered over to the sink. He cranked the hot water on then and asked, “So… is he pissed at you, too?”

“Yeah. Well, not as much as he is with you. He gets angry at everything that makes him emotional,” Shiro said.

Lance gasped in horror, eyes remorseful as he cried, “I make him emotional?!”

“Lance, no, that’s not what I meant—”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him _emotionally_! Or at all, I mean, I’m not that kinda guy—”

“I honestly can’t have a serious conversation with you when you’re like this. This has happened no less than three times now,” Shiro said, hand on his hip as Lance hurriedly dried off his hands to do the same. They glared at one another, hands on their designated hips.

“What other times have I been like this?”

“When Taylor Swift’s _Reputation_ tour started?” he said, and instantly Lance was moaning in remorse, slumping forward over the sink. “Shit, Lance, get ahold of yourself.”

Lance clenched his fists on the counter and seethed down at the sink, “Why does she keep _going_?”

Shiro brushed a pile of straws into the trash on his way to Lance. He clapped Lance on the back and kept walking. “You’re focusing a _little_ too hard on things. Focus on yourself for a while.”

“That’s what I’ve _been_ doing for the past _two years_ ,” he said, and after a moment of moping, he straightened up and got to work again. He flicked on the light switch for the main room and began to wonder what, exactly, he’d been doing with himself his sophomore and freshmen year.

Really, he focused on… The Girls and Allura. Of course, school was important, but every time he had an open spot in his schedule, he tried to search for Hunk and Allura. He didn’t make many friends in the dorms, and it was really just Hunk, Shay, and him in the apartment. He tended to think of his studies as… _separate_ from him. It was either… studying, or hanging with the few friends he kept close.

_Maybe I_ do _need time for myself_ …

At least, that was what he thought at first. It didn’t take long for him to realize that, as the night started, he _depended_ on socializing. It was different at work—again, detached from him—but he thought it was _fun_ to pretend to be someone he wasn’t. The sort of person who could walk up and strike up a conversation with anyone at anytime. He was just a stranger to all these customers, and so he didn’t mind if he made a fool of himself. It wasn’t like they were all intimate with each other.

He didn’t like to be on his own. He liked to sit with Shay at The Lion Café, and play video games with Hunk (and Pidge, regrettably). He liked falling asleep with Keith clinging to his shirt like that… he didn’t like to wake up alone.

It was the middle of the night, around when Lance took a break to eat to last through the later drunken rush. He scooped himself a bowl of soup and slurped on it to annoy his coworker, who left making disgusted noises. He giggled to himself and pulled his phone out, only to stop at the sight of Keith’s name on his phone for the first time in days.

 

 

**Keith:** _I’m gonna regret this  
_ _but  
_ _just follow Shiro home if you want_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SOBBING LANCE PUNTED THE STRAWS ACROSS THE COUNTER, RAN INTO A DOOR, AND TOLD KEITH THAT HE WAS AN ADDICT. 
> 
> [girlskylark](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)   
>  [llstarcasterll](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/)


	9. ninja skills

Lance wasn’t the greatest ninja by any means, and so he wasn’t exactly surprised that Shiro caught him at the bus stop standing patiently off to the side for Shiro’s bus to show.

“Where do you live?” Shiro asked.

“Not far.”

“Oh,” he hummed, and so they stood in silence together. 

When Shiro’s bus came, the door cranked open and Shiro stepped on. He scanned his card, and Lance came on after him. When the machine beeped for Lance, Shiro turned and the two of them stared at one another as the door closed slowly behind Lance, and the driver started forward. Shiro narrowed his eyes at Lance and turned back around to find a seat. 

The bus lights made it impossible to see out into the dark city, and so Shiro stared at his reflection as Lance walked down the isle. He turned as Lance took a seat directly next to him, and Lance looked straight ahead, innocent as ever.

Keith would probably have an aneurism seeming how awful Lance was at this, but Shiro didn’t seriously bat an eye until Lance followed him off the bus.

The two of them stopped at that street corner surrounded by tall, beautiful buildings, all lit up with neon lights. Lance, not knowing where to go, and Shiro, wondering where the hell Lance was going. Lance blinked up at him innocently, and it was enough for Shiro’s brain to find where it was going.

He sighed.

“Our apartment’s this way…” he said, and Lance yelped in excitement, chasing after him so that they could walk side-by-side. “What the hell’d Keith tell you?”

“We’re snuggle buddies now.”

“Oh my God. Remind me never to repeat that in front of him—he’d tear my head off my shoulders,” Shiro said, hand over his forehead. Lance was too proud of himself to bother feeling embarrassed. 

They walked around the block and to one of the glass fronts of a suave apartment complex. Lance stopped to look up at it as Shiro scanned his card at the door and let them in. They stood in silence in the elevator after that, and distantly, Taylor Swift was playing like that taunting voice in Lance’s head that sometimes told him he was fucking shit up and needed to stop. He looked at Shiro, who, tired, stared flatly at him right back.

“Not. A word,” he hissed.

“I didn’t say anything,” Lance said, grinning.

The elevator dinged, and they left the Taylor Swift Tomb together in favor of reaching the apartment door. Shiro unlocked it, and let Lance inside. 

“This is us,” he said, and just as Lance was about to pay his compliments, he watched Keith zip out of the hallway in horror. He stared at them, looking like he was getting ready to pop a blood vessel in his eye. 

Keith gestured to Shiro in annoyance, and then furiously to Lance.

“He followed me to the bus stop,” Shiro said.

“Yeah, I followed him.”

“You weren’t supposed to… Jesus fucking Christ,” Keith grumbled, storming forward to grab Lance by the sleeve of his work shirt. 

“Wait, I gotta take off my shoes—”

“Fucking leave ‘em on,” Keith hissed, shoving him into the hallway and through the far door before storming back to the kitchen to snap, “Not a word.”

“Sure,” Shiro said.

Lance beamed at Keith as he whirled back around, and saw Lance standing there just on the other side of his bedroom door. Keith stormed up to him and shoved him further into the room. Lance slapped his hands playfully, and made weird noises as Keith smacked his hands and kicked the door shut. 

“You’re _such_ a fucking insufferable _asshat_ ,” Keith seethed.

“Aw, you’re not so bad,” Lance said, and Keith turned red. Lance couldn’t tell if it was from anger or from being flustered, but either way Keith’s eyebrow started to twitch. 

He tackled Lance, who cursed and fell back against Keith’s bed. Keith shoved his hand on Lance’s mouth to shut him up, so of course Lance licked it and made the situation _worse_. Keith screamed and kneed him in the side. Lance yelped, jerking forward. He bashed his head into Keith’s shoulder, though, and fell back groaning. He tried to wiggle out from under Keith, but Keith had him pinned to the mattress, rubbing his wet hand on the comforter.

“ _Gross_. You piece of _shit_ ,” he seethed.

“You’re the worst snuggle buddy! You just hit me!”

“ _Don’t_ call me that,” Keith hissed, moving off of him. He grabbed Lance by the ankle and yanked him. Lance screamed and fell off the bed in a heap of bones and black clothes. “Take your fucking shoes off before you get on the bed.”

Lance saluted Keith from the floor. “Aye aye, Captain.”

Keith stopped mid-way to the closet, and turned slowly with the distinct look of a cat preparing to pounce. Lance visibly flinched and scrambled to take off his shoes before climbing up onto Keith’s bed, and taking in the room for the first time since being shoved in there and viciously attacked.

It wasn’t _small_ , but it wasn’t _big_ , either. It was what you would expect of a San Diego apartment in the city. Compact and functional, with all of Keith’s needs squished inside of it. One wall was entirely composed of windows that looked down to the street he and Shiro walked up no more than ten minutes prior. Lance looked out to it, and the building across from them before moving his attention along the string of Christmas lights to what appeared to be a drafting table. The one lamp in the room sat beside it, entirely surrounded by pens and pencils and markers of all kinds. There were sheets of paper all across the walls, and stuffed haphazardly into a filing cabinet underneath the desk. 

Lance continued to look at it all as something light draped over his lap. Keith walked around the bed, and caught Lance’s attention. The bed bounced as Keith flopped down onto it. 

A worn, cutoff shirt sat in Lance’s lap. He lifted it up, took the hint, and started unbuttoning his work shirt. He stood up from the bed and walked over to one of the walls filled with artwork. They were landscapes, and though Lance had never been to San Francisco, he saw plenty of pictures of the place to recognize it.

“Do you miss it?” he asked, pointing to it.

“I don’t know,” Keith confessed, and when Lance raised an eyebrow, sliding his sleeves off, Keith rolled his eyes. “Seriously. I’m kind of indifferent about moving.”

“Whatever you say, hotshot,” Lance hummed, and tugged on the shirt Keith offered him. “Mind if I let my legs breathe a little?”

“So long as you don’t describe it like that,” Keith huffed, stretching his hands behind his head, and watching all the while Lance took off his pants. He stepped out of them, maintaining eye contact as he put his hands on his hips. “Love the pizza boxers.”

“I know.”

“Sorta thought you were a briefs guy. Kinda disappointed.”

“Why, ‘cause you’d get to see more leg then?” he asked, dragging a hand up his thigh.

Keith laughed and said, “No. I mean, well, I guess boxers makes sense. They _are_ kinda like swim trunks and you’re a water fiend.”

“I am _not_ a water fiend. I just like to swim.”

“Synonyms, synonyms.”

“Light?”

“Cut it.”

Lance twisted the knob on the desk lamp, and yanked the Christmas lights out of the wall. The room was dark, all except for the faint blue light of the moon passing in through the window. He found the edge of the curtain, and tugged it over.

When it came time for Lance to find his spot on the bed again, he reached an arm out and slapped his hand around until he found purchase on the comforter. He felt around for his phone and, once obtaining it, scrambled onto the bed and under the covers. He wiggled in and shimmied to the side, until he bumped up against Keith. Keith have a sort of noncommittal laugh and turned towards him. 

“Do we need, like… boundaries or something?” Keith asked, voice quiet. Hearing Keith whisper was perhaps the most intimate thing Lance ever heard in his entire life, and it took a severe amount of willpower to keep himself from letting the “Aw!” leave his throat.

He swallowed it back and leaned a bit closer. “I don’t think so. So long as you don’t spear my ass in the middle of the night, we’ll be good.”

“Fuck off. What spoon even are you?”

“I can be anything you want me to be.”

“You must be a _blast_ at _all_ of the gay parties.”

“It makes three-ways especially easy to organize.”

“Hm. Good to know. Is this for future reference or something we’re doing right now? Surprise guest star or something?” Keith said, and they both giggled as Lance tried to keep from snorting out loud. 

“Sorry—lemme just set up the cameras real quick,” he said, and weaseled his arm over Keith like he was reaching for something. He dropped his arm around Keith’s shoulders and squeezed in close with a sigh. “There it is.”

Lance was certain he could feel Keith smiling, just from being this close and in the dark. They settled in so their hot breaths wouldn’t start a sauna under the covers—Keith’s head tucked beneath Lance’s chin, and Lance resting comfortably up, higher on the pillows. 

Lance nestled his head against the cushions and cleared his throat. “So, um… does this mean we’re still in the tournament? I was too sad to check the roster.”

“Yeah, still in the tournament. I didn’t withdraw our names,” he murmured. “Go to sleep.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

 

* * *

 

Lance didn’t mean to.

It just… sort of _happened_ without anyone really noticing, or commenting on it.

He woke up the next morning with Keith, and the two of them went out to a tea house for breakfast. It should have felt like a date, but instead it just felt like Keith was buying him food to apologize for being a raging dickhead. 

In the midst of eating pancakes whilst wearing Keith’s cutoff shirt, Lance realized a very important fact: he had nothing going on for the rest of the day. All he had was work to look forward to that night.

So, when they left the café on the topic of the tattoo Keith was designing for Lance, Lance asked, “Do you have it at the apartment?”

“Yeah—you wanna see it?”

“Sure.”

And, so, Lance wound up at Shiro and Keith’s apartment for the second time. Keith was quick to herd Lance away from where Shiro was hanging out in the living room, and locked them up in Keith’s bedroom so they wouldn’t be disturbed. While Keith dug around his papers and sketchbooks, Lance flopped onto the bed and rolled over to where they had both slept the night before. It wasn’t warm anymore, but the sheets were still a mess as evidence of two people having slept there instead of one. He smiled blissfully at it before turning his attention back to Keith, who was climbing onto the bed with his sketchbook in hand.

After discussing the tattoo for a while, they moved on to other designs Keith was working on. One of them involved a show Lance had never seen, and so Keith promptly dragged Lance out to the living room and forced him onto the couch.

He turned to Shiro.

“Lance hasn’t seen _Jessica Jones_ before,” Keith said. “We need to watch it right now.”

“Right now?” Shiro parroted, alarmed. He had the remote in his hand, and looked lost the instant Keith stole it from him. 

He squeezed in between Shiro and Lance, sketchbook on his lap and a pen stuck behind his ear. As Netflix loaded, Keith flipped to the page again and pointed sharply to the first element of the piece: a DSLR camera. 

“Jessica is a PI.”

“A… PI?” Lance said, and looked up to raise an eyebrow at Keith.

Keith stared at him and said, “Like, private investigator. She gets evidence of people cheating and doing sketchy shit.”

“Ah, I see why you like her now,” Lance hummed.

“She’s also an alcoholic.”

“Even better.”

“Shut the fuck up—I am not an alcoholic,” he groaned, and Shiro leaned over to look at Lance and share his agreement on that fact.

“He just likes to drink sometimes,” Shiro said.

“Right, fine, whatever. But I get the impression that Jessica Jones is Keith. What else is she about? _Cobalt Lane?_ ”

Nested around the strap of the stylized DSLR, there sat a bottle of liquor, and a street sign cutting out from behind it. Lance pointed to it, and both Keith and Shiro gave him a flat look.

“It’s a long story.”

They started their journey through this ‘long story’ that day, and up until Lance’s shift at the bar. Shiro started taking Sundays off, now that they had the staff to handle it, and so Lance said his goodbyes, still pining after finishing the last of Jessica Jones. _They were so close—!_

When his shift ended late that night, he couldn’t help but text Keith as he closed up, “ _Damn now I’m gonna have to binge the rest until the morning_.” 

As he was leaving through the back door and locking it after the new recruit left, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

“ _Well, if you’re gonna pull an all nighter too, then we might as well do it together_.”

And, so, Lance went back to his apartment briefly to pick up his things—his laptop, some clothes, and moisturizer. By the time he left, Hunk and Shay didn’t even know he was there, and by one in the morning, he was texting Keith out in the summer night heat outside of the apartment.

Keith buzzed him in, and so he wandered up to their floor, and to where Keith was leaning against the open doorframe on his phone. He didn’t look up as Lance approached, and merely kicked the door open further and led the way inside. The kitchen was dark, and the living room was empty, and Lance reassured Keith that he had his laptop so that they didn’t need to linger out in the common area.

“You sure?” Keith asked.

“Yeah, and then you can work at your desk if you want,” he said, and it was decided.

Once Lance was inside Keith’s room, Keith shut the door as quietly as possible behind them and twisted on his desk light. The Christmas lights were all sparkling, fading in and out and reflecting on the open window. Lance peered out into the street for a while before lowering his backpack down and pulling out his laptop. He went back to standing next to the curtain, arms crossed.

“I wish I had a view like this. I love windows.”

“Maybe you should get some.”

“Yeah, tell my landlord that right before bashing a hole in my wall. I’d get evicted for sure then,” he huffed, and Keith rolled his eyes. “But seriously though—this is _prime_ Christmas seating.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, late at night, hot chocolate, the lights, the atmosphere, the decorations out on the streets? _God_ , as much as I love summer, now I’m really excited for Christmas.”

He hugged his laptop to his chest and looked over at Keith, who was getting settled at his desk and pouring water from his water bottle into a glass jar. Keith looked up at him before returning to his work. Lance took it as a sign that they were both barely functioning, and in need of something mindless to do instead of putting effort into a conversation.

Lance curled up on Keith’s bed and typed in the wifi password to Keith’s wifi he provided just the day before. He tugged his sweatshirt sleeves down so they covered the palms of his hands, and nestled his chin there as he scrolled through Netflix, and looked at Keith out of the corner of his eye. Keith had one hand holding the paper still, and the other meticulously arcing across the paper in long, meaningful strokes of bold black ink. Lance smiled at the sound of pen scratching on paper, and turned away to ask if Keith was fine with him watching the show without headphones.

“I’ve watched it enough times to not be bothered,” Keith said, and so that was how the night went.

As the end of the season neared, Keith shut off his lamp and climbed over. They watched from separate pillows during the last half of the episode, with Lance’s heart rate through the roof, and Keith, stoic as ever. In the end, Lance could have sworn that the world outside was just a little brighter. It wasn’t quite dawn yet.

That early morning, Keith was sleepy and his eyes were half-lidded as he nudged closer to Lance under the covers. Lance set his laptop on the floor and turned back to find Keith settled in with his back to Lance. Lance wasn’t the greatest at social cues, but he knew how to be a big spoon when the time came. 

He nestled in and wrapped his arms firmly around Keith. Keith was quiet, tired, and unbothered by the Christmas lights as he drifted off in Lance’s arms. 

Lance didn’t really mean to stay the night two days in a row, and he certainly hadn’t meant to stay a third night.

By dinner time the next day, Hunk started texting him asking where he was. Lance looked up from his laptop blearily, and wondered, _Wow, how long have I been gone? Not_ that _long, right?_ He looked over to the indifferent boy sitting at the desk, and decided to ask.

“What day is it?”

“Hm? It’s Monday.”

“Don’t you have a session to get to?”

“Yeah, I have an hour still,” he said, tapping a brush on the edge of a glass and drying it on a nearby, dirty towel. “You can stay here if you want.”

“That’d be weird—this is your place. Isn’t Shiro annoyed I’ve been here for so long?”

“I don’t think he knows you’ve even _been_ here today,” Keith confessed. “He didn’t hear you come in last night.”

“Oh,” he hummed, tapping a finger to his chin. “I still don’t think I should stay the night again. I’ve gotta get back to Hunk—he’s worried I’m gonna miss game night.”

“Game night?”

“It’s just… this thing we do too often. Play video games with Pidge,” he explained, picking at a nonexistent speck of fuzz on his pants. “I used to be annoyed that they joined in but now they’re partners with Hunk and all that so I just feel like an ass being annoyed by it.”

“Why would you be annoyed?”

“It was, like, a _Hunk and Lance_ thing, you know? And now it’s a _Hunk, Pidge, and Lance_ thing,” he said, and couldn’t stop himself from pouting when Keith turned around to look at him. “I’m being replaced by a gremlin.”

“Pidge is _not_ a gremlin. As much as I hate the little thief, I’ve known them my entire life,” Keith said, and turned back around. “You just gotta get used to them. I mean, you can’t hate Pidge _that_ much if you came with them to all of the tattoo appointments.”

“I did that to see you, though,” Lance said, shamelessly, and even smiled with a fraction of guilt when Keith turned to him in surprise. “I was pissed about the volleyball tournament last summer. I had bruises for weeks from your spikes.”

“What, so were you gonna fight me at my work?”

“What? No! I just—I dunno, it was stupid,” Lance said, becoming more and more flustered by the second. He turned away, face red. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter now.”

He caught a glimpse of Keith snickering, and turned away furiously. He went back to Tumblr and tried to forget that he said anything. It was impossible for him to avoid thinking about it, though, and what Keith must think of him now.

When Keith started to pack up to go, Lance did the same. They left the apartment together, so that Keith could lock up behind them. Shiro was off (“Probably at Allura’s,” Keith had said) and so it was just the two of them that day Lance walked Keith to his bus heading to Nunchi. 

“We should probably start practice again tomorrow,” Keith told him.

“Sure, yeah. I work the afternoon shift so…”

“Morning?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Keith turned as they heard the telltale sound of a bus’ engine whirring around the corner. Lance leaned over to see the yellow text blink on the screen above the driver’s window before Keith glanced back at him. 

“I figure… that I should probably thank you. For being so chill about all this bullshit,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “I sometimes get overwhelmed hanging out with people constantly, so I’ll probably take a break from all that and let you know when we can get together again. If you want, I mean.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s… understandable. Whatever makes you comfortable,” Lance said, and shared a soft, knowing smile with Keith before the bus doors opened. Keith stepped on and scanned his card, and Lance waved politely to the driver to let him know that he wouldn’t be going. The doors closed, the bus hissed as it lifted from the sidewalk, and drove off.

 

* * *

 

Practice went back to the way it was—leaving Lance exhausted after every trip to the gym. He trudged to work after in the gross June heat, downed a cup of coffee on the way, and stayed alive until midnight when he could clock out. Then, too tired to move much farther than his bed, he collapsed and slept until the late hours of the morning.

When he emerged, he heard Hunk and Shay tooling around in the living room. He hesitated at the entrance to his hallway, scratching his head as he watched the show on TV. Even disgruntled and disoriented, Lance recognized it.

“Are you guys watching _Jessica Jones?_ ” he asked, and was met only with screams.

Shay leapt nearly a foot in the air, and turned to stare at him. Hunk covered his face and looked between his fingers at him. Lance winced, sensitive to the noise. 

“We—When did you get back? We didn’t hear you get in last night,” Shay asked, alarmed. She leaned off the couch to look into Lance’s open bedroom door. “Is Keith here?”

“What? Fuck no,” he said, and shook his head. “Whatever, I’m exhausted. Where’s the caffeine?”

Shay helped him brew a mug of coffee while he made oatmeal. As he ate and gathered strength back, he realized that he was thinking about Keith. Specifically, waking up with morning light spilling in from behind Keith’s curtains. He wondered how he managed to graze straight over the details the previous two nights he spent in Keith’s room. Perhaps it was the lack of romance involved with their pact to be snuggle buddies, but whatever the case, Lance was thinking about it now, and smiled sleepily to himself as he stirred cinnamon and brown sugar into a pot simmering on the stove. His thoughts were all wrapped in the aroma of sweet, sweet bliss, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if he started blossoming flowers shaped like hearts that bubbled and floated into space. 

From the living room, Hunk and Shay watched Lance dissolve into euphoria at the thought of waking up next to Keith again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If ya like my stuff, check out the purple button on my [blog](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/) :)


	10. water chestnuts

**Keith:** _Can you tell Lance to stop fucking calling me? It’s starting to piss me the fuck off._

**Pidge:** _No can do. He’s in full-on relationship mode_

**Keith:** _For fuck’s sake I knew this would happen_

**Pidge:** _Hate to say it but… you did this to yourself.  
_ _Who am I kidding I’ve been wanting to say that since Saturday._

**Keith:** _Fuck off oh my God just steal his phone already so he can STOP_

 

**Pidge:** _I’m coming over._

**Hunk:** _Yay! Black Ops :)_

 

* * *

 

Lance couldn’t find his phone anywhere. 

He was attached to the damn thing—he even took it to the bathroom when he had to shit. What else was he supposed to do while he was shitting? Stare at a wall? That was what _Twitter was for_. 

“Hunk?” Lance called out, throwing his bedsheets around the room. 

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Have you seen my phone? I can’t find it anywhere.”

Lance scowled at his deflated pillow covers and turned, hands on his hips, to glare at the mess on his floor. He was starting to worry that he _seriously_ lost it. Like, a-stranger-picked-it-up-on-the-bus-and-is-now-sending-nudes-to-his-mother type of “lost it.” His heart stuttered at the thought, and it took a few deep breaths to get it under control.

“Nah, man, I haven’t seen it,” Hunk said. A blast went off, and it shook the wall. “Oh, shit, sorry—Pidge, turn the volume down.”

“I don’t have the fuckin’ remote. What am I, your mother?” they said, and it was followed by a colorful string of swears as explosions went off on the speakers that made it sound like Lance’s room was being pelted by a machine gun.

Lance gathered up his sheets in his arms and dumped them haphazardly on his bed. “When did you see me with my phone last?!” he shouted over the noise. Hunk and Pidge were both cursing, scrambling for the remote all while trying to maintain their progress without pausing. The volume lowered, and Hunk shouted over it:

“When you were cooking earlier!”

Lance stormed into the kitchen then, and started flipping the place upside down looking for it. He opened the dishwasher, and after counting to three, he ducked down and checked. Phew. Coast clear.

“I don’t know where I would have _put it_ …” he moaned, stomping his foot as he slammed the dishwasher shut. 

“I dunno, maybe up your ass and around the corner,” Pidge said, and Hunk cackled and high-fived them.

“Hunk, you’re starting to let Pidge rub off on you. Since when were you this vulgar?” Lance whined.

“Since you started masterbating with your phone,” Pidge said.

“Ooh! Good one Pidge!” Hunk hollered, and they high-fived again.

“I don’t _masterbate!_ That’s complete bullshit. Where did _you_ read that men masterbate at least once a week,” Lance said, arms crossed. He squinted at them and looked away, and squinted at them again.

“The last thing I ever wanted to know was what you assaulted my ear canals with just now,” Pidge said. “But I can assure that I have not seen your phone, dumbass.”

Lance deflated, and continued to pout as he moseyed over and collapsed next to Hunk on the couch. Hunk gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder, and let Lance lean against him as he watched the two of them fight zombies on the television.

It was now a week since he last spent the night at Keith’s, and he was missing the comfort. Hunk supplemented some of the loss, but truthfully, Lance loved Keith’s room. Lance and Hunk’s apartment wouldn’t have the same vibes. They needed more Christmas lights, and a view of the street and storefronts. He wondered when Keith would want to hang out again, outside of practice.

Practices were just like every other time before The Incident. Keith drilled Lance, and made him feel more like a libero with every passing day. Lance didn’t exactly mind getting on his knees (in more ways than one), but the bruises were excruciating after a few days. The soreness made it difficult to walk to the bar and face another eight hours on his feet. But… if it meant he got to see Keith…

He promised himself not to badger Keith in person. He got the impression that Keith felt cornered in conversation, and he didn’t want to metaphorically torture the information out of the guy—whether or not Keith wanted Lance over that night, or any night after. But without his phone, he didn’t really have a choice.

The next morning when they met like clockwork, Lance told himself to wait. Keith’s eyes were drawn down by purple bags, and his normally soft hair was frizzy and tied haphazardly into a ponytail. 

“Wrow, you look like shit,” Lance said. 

“Haven’t been getting much sleep,” he said, prying his shirt off in the locker room. He chucked it into his duffle and navigated his way around a cutoff shirt. He tugged it on. “My ex visited my parents the other day.”

“You’re kidding,” Lance said, straightening up. “What happened? What’d they tell him?”

“I don’t know. No one’s telling me shit,” he hissed, looking down with a hand on his forehead. “I just overheard Shiro on the phone about it before he took it out into the hallway.”

Lance stared at him, and watched the way his attention flitted to his sneakers. He sat on the bench and roughly pried his shoes off to replace them. 

“Have you tried talking to Shiro about it?” he asked.

“Fuck no.”

“Well… maybe you should?”

“I always start fights about this. I don’t want to argue with him,” he said. “Not again. It’s been half a _year_. Why’s that shithead still bothering?” 

Lance watched as Keith took one of his shoes and chucked it at the locker across from it. The thud resonated through the metal, and across the empty locker room as Keith put his head in his hands. His knee continued to bounce, though, and eventually, he threw his hands down. 

“I don’t want to _fucking_ hear his _excuses_ ,” he seethed.

“Then don’t listen to them if it gets to that,” Lance said. “Where do your parents live?”

When Keith didn’t reply, Lance swallowed hard at the realization that Keith’s ex was probably in San Diego right now. Who knew how close, or how far.

“If you’re worried about him coming to your place… just stay by mine,” Lance said, and the words brought Keith’s eyes up to glare at him. It wasn’t the reaction Lance had been hoping for, and the veins around his heart started to tangle around it. “It’s just—I don’t—”

“Fuck, dude, don’t look so terrified,” Keith said, pushing to his feet to grab his shoes and stuff them into his bag. Lance was already changed, with his things tucked away in the locker. Keith shoved his in after them. 

“I’m just… wondering why you haven’t been answering me all week,” Lance said. “I didn’t want to bring it up here, but I figured… if you aren’t doing well or whatever, let me help you at least?”

Keith laughed a little, shaking his head. “No. No way.”

“Why not?” Lance demanded, and regretted raising his voice. 

Keith locked the door to their locker and turned on Lance with a sneer. He shoved Lance by the shoulders, forcing him away as he hissed, “I don’t need you coddling me right now! I get that you’re a relationship-oriented guy, but I can’t deal with that emotional attachment right now! I’m going through my own shit, don’t force me into this.”

He shoved the key flat against Lance’s chest and stormed off. Lance looked down at it, shocked, and realized that Keith was just waiting for him to get his things and leave. C’est la vie, tournament winnings.

Lance chased after Keith, pocketing the key.

“Dude, I get that you’re angry, I do,” Lance said, pulling Keith by the arm. They stopped in the hallway leading out of the locker room, and Keith looked _so_ fucking done before Lance could even start. “And… I know I get attached sometimes. It’s not every day I find people to talk to who don’t exhaust me and shit. Hunk’s one of them, so is Allura, and then you came around. 

“And I’m not asking you to _give me anything_. I don’t need your attention or affection or whatever. Stay apathetic if you want, I don’t give a shit. But I _know_ you didn’t mind last weekend. I’m fine with just hanging out with you even when we aren’t doing shit,” Lance said, pushing his hands into his pockets as he looked away and bit into his lip. 

When he looked back at Keith, the hostility was gone.

“Just… quit fucking flirting with me. It gets old,” Keith said, and stormed out of the locker room. Lance was almost too shocked to respond until Keith added, “And quit texting me and I’ll tell Pidge to give your phone back!”

“You—Wait, _what?_ Pidge has my phone?!” Lance shrieked, and bolted out of the locker room to chase after Keith, but Keith was already running, laughing his ass off.

 

* * *

 

“Hunk, you’ve met Keith, right? Keith, Hunk,” Lance said as he sauntered into his apartment. Something fell on the kitchen tiles, and Lance looked to find Hunk hesitating to pick up the spoon he dropped when Lance and Keith stepped inside. Keith paused before turning around and closing the door behind them. He locked it and waved weakly to Hunk.

“H-Hey! How’s it going? It’s been a while, huh?” Hunk said, trying to look casual as he leant against the counter with a hand on his hip.

Keith laughed and said, “Yeah, it has been. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten the chance to talk to you. I hope Pidge hasn’t poisoned you, yet.”

“Poison?” Hunk squeaked.

Keith turned to Lance and said, “They once tried to feed me rat poison when we were little and Shiro would babysit us.”

“Holy shit,” Lance said, and laughed out of shock, and not because he found it funny. It came off that way, though. “I—I mean, that’s dreadful. You almost died.”

“They say that’s what makes me so powerful. Because I narrowly dodged my assassination.”

“I find it hard to believe that Pidge is that evil,” Hunk confessed, and giggled nervously. “Right?”

“Keep telling yourself that. Where’s your room?” Keith asked, pointing to Lance, who then pointed to the hallway leading to his section of the apartment. “Cool. Nice meeting you, Hunk. Hope it’s not too much of a bother that I’m here.”

“No, definitely not,” Hunk said, and when Keith walked off, Lance made eye contact with Hunk. It was a mistake.

Hunk winked at Lance and shot him finger guns. Lance stuck his tongue out, and Hunk made a circle with his thumb and index finger, and jabbed his opposite finger through it. Lance pretended to grab Hunk by the collar and punch his face, and Hunk pumped his thumb towards his mouth and stuck his tongue against the inside of his cheek in rhythm to it. 

“Oh my God, please stop,” Lance said, laughing as he lunged over to shove Hunk. Hunk dodged it, though, giggling and slapping at Lance’s hands. They got into a cat fight before Keith interrupted them.

Keith cleared his throat, and they both turned, grabbing at each others shirts like absolute barbarians.

“Uh… I was just gonna ask if I could use your shower?” he said.

“Oh, yeah, go for it. You can use anything that’s in there.”

“ _Even his dildo_ ,” Hunk whispered after Keith, and Lance slapped him upside the head for it.

“I have no such thing. My Ma would sniff it out if she ever came to visit,” Lance hissed, and Hunk slapped his hand over his mouth to keep from cackling out loud. “You’re gonna get me _murdered_ ,” he hissed, and slapped Hunk in the arm for good measure before storming off.

Hunk continued to laugh his ass off, even after Lance slammed his bedroom door shut.

Lance put a hand over his face, and dragged it down his cheek as he listened for the shower to start up. He toed his shoes off and nudged them off to the side, along with his workout clothes and shit. He didn’t work that night, and so he changed into his comfy clothes—athletic shorts and a tank top—before climbing into bed with his laptop.

His eyes continuously flitted over to the bathroom door, waiting for Keith to emerge even when he knew the shower was still running. After a few minutes, though, the water shut off, and it turned into a waiting game, wondering when Keith would turn the lock and—

The lock turned.

Lance nearly kneed his computer across the room as he scrambled to look natural before realizing that he was already _looking_ natural. When Keith looked up from rubbing the towel over his hair, Lance looked like he was trying to reach across the Pacific, but his legs were too tangled to get there.

“Uh…” Keith said.

Lance kicked the blankets down and pushed towards the wall so that his spot was all open for Keith to sit. Keith draped the towel over the bathroom door handle and wandered over. He was dressed in a fresh pair of shorts and a cutoff shirt drizzled with dried paint over the front. Lance yanked his attention back up to Keith’s face as Keith crawled onto the bed with his phone, hair still wet, and huddled under the covers. His eyes drooped, and he looked like he was about ready to pass out before the clock even hit noon.

“I work at five…” he moaned. “I don’t wanna…”

“Sleep until then. You’ll feel better,” Lance said. He lifted his hand, preparing to ruffle Keith’s ruffled hair, and thought better of it. He put his hand down. 

Something Lance noticed about the way Keith slept was that he tended to huddle far under the covers so he became nothing more than a pocket of air under the blankets. He figured it was useful for now, considering it was still morning, and the sun was streaming in through Lance’s bedroom window. Lance waited and listened for Keith to fall asleep, and for his breaths to lull the blankets up and down… 

Only then did Lance lay his hand over Keith’s shoulder, and rub idly at it as he scrolled through Tumblr. 

With Keith sleeping beside him, exhaustion started to pull at Lance until he set his laptop aside, soft music playing, and settled in to take a nap. He set an alarm for five hours later, for Keith’s sake, and didn’t expect to sleep soundly up until then. When the bell chimed, muffled underneath the covers, Lance blinked his eyes blearily open, and squinted over the fluff of Keith’s hair peaking out from under the blankets. The light outside was turning orange, muted by the shadow of the neighboring building. It filed in through the slits of the curtain, and shifted as Keith stretched his legs out so his feet dipped off the end of the bed. 

“What time is it…” Keith moaned, turning around. He pushed himself up by his elbows, and pulled his shirt up to rub his face on it. 

“Almost four. I figured you’d want to eat something,” Lance said. “There’s a ramen place on the first floor.”

“Fuck… yes… Oh my God, let’s go,” he said, tossing the covers back.

Lance leaned off the side of the bed and grabbed his socks from inside his shoes. After slipping them on and tying the laces, he tapped his toes against the carpet to make sure his shoes were secure. Keith was in the midst of digging through the shit in his duffle when he looked up and found Lance ready to go.

“Would it be okay if I…?” he started, pointing hesitantly to his bag.

“Dude yeah, just leave it here. Do you have all your shit for work in there?” Lance asked, and Keith held the tote bag up from beside him. “Awesome. Let’s go then.”

As Lance led the way out of the quiet apartment, Keith rubbed his hands over his eyes and reveled in the fact that he much preferred Lance’s bed over his own. He felt guilty for thinking it, considering the amount of money he spent on rent for a place he didn’t particularly like. There wasn’t anything wrong with his apartment—on the contrary: everything was perfect. Incredibly so. No apartment complex should have been as nice as his and Shiro’s, and yet somehow they managed to squeak in just as an opening arose. It was like the world was trying to tell Keith, “ _Yes! This is a great start to a new life after breaking up with Lotor!_ ”

It was like life was trying to make up for the fact that breaking up with someone was supposed to be dreadful. He was starting to feel the dread, but it was too late for that. He should be over Lotor by now. Sure, the past five years were great and fucking incredible, and yeah, he missed Lotor most days, but… they had to get over each other.

And that was that.

So yeah, he liked sleeping in Lance’s bed. It felt like _moving the fuck on_.

The elevator opened up to the first floor, and Lance led the way through a hallway connecting to the nearby square of shops all tucked away indoors. It was like a small, mini mall consisting only of fast-food restaurants and a market place. Keith looked up at the skylights, and the lazy evening sun. 

“It feels like I’m on vacation,” he confessed aloud, turning around and then back again to where Lance was waiting for him to catch up. “This place reminds me of a waterpark.”

“Yeah, without the buckets chlorine,” Lance said, and if Lance had been looking at him, he wouldn’t have smiled as wide as he had. “Right, so, I guess we have a few options.”

“You already got me hooked on the idea of ramen.”

“Fine, we can go there.”

“Why do you sound disappointed?” Keith said, crossing his arms with a laugh as Lance’s ears turned red. 

“I’m not disappointed! I was craving it earlier—”

“Then why are you arguing with me?” he said, and Lance slapped his hands down with a groan. “I’m _kidding_. Oh my God, we sounded like a married couple for a second there.”

“Terrifying,” Lance deadpanned, and Keith surprised himself by laughing hard and slapping Lance on the arm. He walked ahead, hurrying into the ramen place so that he could avoid being pestered all over again by Lance. 

_So much for avoiding the flirting tactic_ , he thought, grimacing as he stepped into the line of college students all studying the menu board. 

He tucked his hand against his mouth and tried to smother his smile when Lance came to stand beside him and recommended one of the entrées. _It feels like we’re dating even when we aren’t_ , he thought, glancing at Lance out of the corner of his eye. He wondered, vaguely, if he could convince himself that they were just long term best friends who… had a habit of having slumber parties. Yes, that sounded convincing. Still, it didn’t change the way Keith’s heart stopped every time Lance looked at him, and he had to recover from feeling starstruck under Lance’s attention. 

It wasn’t that Lance was even “ _all that_ ,” or whatever the fuck. He had a nice smile with teeth whiter than any other set of chompers Keith saw around town. What the fuck did he use for toothpaste? Primer paint? And the thing that topped it off? Lance’s ungodly tan skin that amplified it. Those _fucking dimples_. Keith had wet dreams about them for the past few nights. It was no wonder he wasn’t getting any sleep, because he’d wake up staring at his ceiling thinking, “ _For fuck’s sake,_ ” because no average man should have to deal with this level of absolute buffoonery his brain was currently stuck in.

Lance’s hair was getting highlights—perks of being an absolute fucking _beach babe_. Keith cursed the day he decided he wasn’t mentally prepared for another relationship, because he’d _so_ fucking date the fuck out of this fucking asshole. Lotor always said Keith was secretly a romantic, and now he could see why because he was already planning the fuck out of some bullshit date scenario that was just making him angrier and angrier with each passing minute they spent talking together idly in line. 

After ordering, they claimed a table by the window overlooking the shopping center, and Lance pulled out his phone. Keith pretended to do the same, but his insides were scrambled, and he couldn’t focus on any one thing. He stuck to people-watching because there was always something new to look at, and his attention scattered across the open space outside the window where students came and went. He checked his phone for the time, and reassured himself that he’d make it to work on time.

“You look worried,” Lance commented, but when Keith turned, Lance had his attention on his phone.

“Why?”

“I don’t know—I figured you’d tell me once I mentioned it,” he confessed, grinning as he looked up at Keith. There was that dimple again. 

Keith turned away and wondered why he looked worried. He said the first thing that came to mind, and figured it must be true. “I’m worried about my ex. I thought he’d get over it sooner.”

“That’s no reason to feel guilty.”

“Who said I was guilty?” Keith demanded, and Lance gave an uncertain shrug. “Alright, fine, maybe I do feel a little guilty. And maybe it was a bit extreme, cutting him off like that. But… if a person cheats, they can’t be all that invested in the person they’re cheating on, right? Like, maybe we just weren’t built for a long-term relationship or something.”

“I don’t know about that. What was it like?”

“What? Dating him?” Keith said, and when Lance nodded, Keith slumped and wondered about how he could answer such a question. “I don’t… I don’t know. It meant a lot to me. _He_ meant a lot to me, at some point. We were both spontaneous and reckless. We used to graffiti bridges and trains.”

“That’s pretty cool. If you could introduce me to this guy, excluding the whole cheating incident, how would you describe him?”

“Um… _God_ , I don’t know,” he confessed, laughing. He looked out the window, and studied a couple walking by. They weren’t like him _or_ Lotor. “He was… _funny_. But introverted, but… he was an accidental extrovert. You know how that happens sometimes?” he asked, and Lance nodded.

“You must have a taste in men,” Lance laughed, and winked kiddingly at Keith. Keith reached over to shove him just before their number was called at the counter. Lance excused himself to pick up the food, and Keith sat there, reassuring himself that Lance was nothing like Lotor, even if they were both accidental extroverts.

Keith put his hands in his hair, and promptly slapped them down on the table when Lance turned back (so he wouldn’t see Keith internally _combusting_ ). They ate together like it was a normal thing, and like Keith wasn’t over the moon for the way Lance fucking took a paper napkin and put in on his lap like they were at some fancy restaurant. They were literally at the cheapest ramen place on campus, and this kid goes and fucking puts a napkin on his lap. 

Lance munched on the water chestnuts in his broth, and hummed dramatically. “I don’t know _why_ but water chestnuts have the best goddamn texture. It makes my brain do happy things.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth,” Keith snorted. “‘Happy things’?”

“Yeah, you know what I mean,” Lance said, and Keith tried not to say, “Oh, like what your dimples do to _my_ brain?” but he refrained from saying it aloud.

“I hate water chestnuts.”

“That’s just because you’ve never had any,” Lance said, and Keith shrugged. “Wait, really? I was just kidding. You’ve never had water chestnuts? My dude, give me your mouth right now so I can stick this in there.”

“Never say that again.” 

“Or else what?”

“Or else I won’t give you my mouth to do _anything_ with,” he said, scowling at Lance as the guy speared a chestnut and held it up for Keith.

Keith leaned over and snatch it between his teeth. He munched and munched and wondered why the hell his brain was doing happy things as he chewed. He blamed it on the fact that Lance just fed him instead of blaming the actual mushy content on his tongue.

“Six otta ten.”

“Fuck off. Solid nine otta ten,” Lance said, and promptly stuck another on his tongue. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand, grinning a little as he chewed. Keith stared at him for a moment before looking down with a scoff, and twirling his noodles up with a pair of chopsticks. He scooped them onto a spoon and slurped them up—obnoxiously, just so Lance could complain about it.

It was all worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND LOOK AT THIS GOOGLE DOC I MEANT TO LINK AT THE END OF CHAPTER SIX](https://docs.google.com/document/d/18ks4uHixOdvul9dj1xa0r-l8sGtwf8uKtWYauNVL3SU/edit?usp=sharing)** Everything in red is Marci's commentary and additions to the chapter XD
> 
> [girlskylark](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)   
>  [llstarcasterll](http://llstarcasterll.com/)


	11. beach party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Squad goes to the beach for a lil fun in the sunnn

* * *

  **j u l y 2 0 1 7**

 

_**Lance** invited **Allura, Hunk, Keith, Shiro,** and **Pidge** to the **Group Chat**. _

 

**Lance:** _What’s everyone doing for the 4th?_

**Pidge:** _We aren’t going to the beach, Lance_

**Hunk:** _I don’t get why you’re so against it.  
_ _We’re in a beach volleyball tournament._

**Allura:** _I imagine because it’s the holidays_

**Shiro:** _Meaning 30 thousand people are going to be there_

**Keith:** _Dramatic much_

**Lance:** _Cmon it’d be funnn_

**Allura:** _While I agree that it’d be fun it also doesn’t sound like much fun  
_ _You know how the beaches get on the 4th_

**Lance:** _Then we vacation to a remote beach_

**Keith:** _Fuck off that’s too much work. I also don’t own a car_.

**Lance:** _Shiro owns a car._

**Shiro:** _Is this… you volunteering my car_

**Lance:** _Yes that’s exactly it_

**Pidge:** _I could ask the rents about it  
_ _They have an SUV_

**Hunk:** _Ooooh sick let’s do it! Road trip!_

**Keith:** _Nunchi’s only closed FOR the 4th  
_ _I can’t do a long vacation_

**Lance:** _Fine it’ll just be for the day or something_

**Allura:** _Day and a half_

**Lance:** _Day and a half, yeah_

**Keith:** _Shiro you don’t even agree with the 4th why’s the bar closed_

**Lance:** _Wait you don’t like the 4th?_

**Shiro:** _I’m not a very patriotic person, I guess._

**Allura:** _Yeah that’s fair_

**Lance:** _Allura you’re literally British  
_ _Why are you participating in this_

**Allura:** _I… want a vacation.  
_ _And also The Lion Café is also closed._

**Pidge:** _Un-fucking-believable._

 

* * *

 

Lance woke up at six in the morning on Independence Day because that’s when his brain decided to boost his adrenaline. He already made plans with his Ma to come pick up shit for the beach (and promised to stop by the next day since he was missing the McClain family get together). He fell asleep thinking about the beach and the plans he and his friends made. He was so excited about it that he forgot a certain someone was tucked away under his covers, and promptly tripped over them on his way out of bed. 

He tumbled onto the carpet.

“ _Fuck… Lance…_ ” Keith moaned under the blankets, writhing in discomfort.

Lance winced, and stammered, “Shit, oh my God, I’m sorry. I—I forgot you were there.”

“Why’re you up…” he groaned, but Lance was already bolting for the bathroom. 

After showering, brushing his teeth, and grabbing Keith’s tote full of sunscreen and liquor bottles, Lance hurried out of the bedroom and left Keith to sleep for another two hours. By eight, Lance had a stack of pancakes out on the countertop, and stuffed a cooler full of mini sandwiches he and Hunk made the night before. He stuck Keith’s hard lemonade into the ice and secured the cooler top. 

A door opened from across the apartment, and Lance peeked over the counter to find Shay bounding out of Hunk’s room with a thrilled smile on her face. She gasped at the sight of the pancakes, tipping her sunhat up. 

“Oh man, Lance, you’re the best!” she said, and tossed her beach bag on the couch in favor of making a plate of pancakes for herself.

“How long have you been up, buddy?” Hunk asked, wandering up to stand beside Shay’s chair with his hand over the back of it. Lance hefted the cooler up and readied it by the door.

“I don’t know. A little before seven, I think,” he confessed. “I’m just so fucking excited dude, you have no idea.”

“Did you call your mom about the…?” Hunk asked, and hesitated. It was meant to be a surprise.

“Yeah, she’s cool with it. Dad’s setting it out for us to grab and go,” he said.

“What is it?” Shay asked, and Hunk and Lance hurriedly shushed her. Her eyebrows lifted, but she didn’t question their secrecy after that.

Distantly, they heard the telltale sound of Lance’s shower starting, and so they waited for Keith by eating pancakes, and bottling up Shay’s sun tea from the porch. They pushed the glass doors open, and let the summer breeze in while they filled empty plastic water bottles with rich, pink grapefruit and strawberry tea. Lance’s insides stirred with the warmth of having a day like this for the first time in ages. As a kid, he and his family used to go out to the beach a handful of times throughout the summer, and he always adored those days. He always tanned a deep, rich brown and collected highlights in his salty sea hair. He’d burn the bottoms of his feet on the sand, and swim out with his Ma on a surfboard.

He and Hunk went surfing on occasion the previous summer—after… they _found out_ that the two of them even surfed. It took a while for the topic to even come up, and by then, over half the summer was gone. Regardless, Lance yearned to try again, and so when Pidge came to pick them up in the SUV, Lance propped his phone up by the driver’s seat and told Pidge to—

“—going to my parents’ house,” he said, and looked at Pidge, only to shriek when he realized that this stranger was _not_ the gremlin he knew.

Lance turned back to look at everyone else. They were all accounted for, even Pidge. He turned back to Pidge’s sibling, Matt, and let out a relieved sigh when he realized that he hadn’t just jumped into a stranger’s vehicle. 

“Oh my God, you don’t remember me?!” Matt shrieked. He twisted around to stare at Pidge. “This guy doesn’t remember me!”

“Lance, you know Matt,” Pidge huffed, settling back in their seat with a grin. “The deal my parents gave me involved bringing Matt along.”

Matt beamed at them, and stopped to point a finger at Keith. Keith grinned. “Hey buddy, how’s it goin’?” he asked, reaching his fist out to bump Keith’s.

“Good. I’m ready for my skin to be peeled off by the sun,” he said, and Matt laughed as he turned back around and set the car in motion.

“Did you decide on a beach?” Pidge asked, leaning forward to check out Lance’s phone. It was set for a course to the McClain residence, though.

“Yeah, there’s this beach Hunk and I went to last summer,” he said, “It shouldn’t be too busy. I hope, anyways.” He turned to smile encouragingly at Hunk in the back, who gave him a thumbs up. “Otherwise I have a few backups.”

Keith crossed his ankle over his opposite knee, and folded his arms with a scoff. “Seems like you put a lot of thought into this exertion,” he said, and Lance turned away so Keith wouldn’t have to see his cheeks flush.

Matt drove them through the San Diego suburbs. The curbs were all packed with cars from visiting family members—the license plates stemmed all the way to Texas and even Wyoming. As they approached the destination, Lance groaned as he realized what a mistake it was waiting until today to pick up the goddamn surfboards.

In the street, there were kids he recognized running around like absolute _madmen_. A rubber ball slammed into their windshield, and everyone in the car jumped except Lance, who slapped his hand over his face and cursed under his breath. His front lawn was already packed with his aunts and uncles, and a tent was sent up out on the driveway. 

“Okay, everyone stay in the fucking car or risk getting mauled,” Lance said, and pushed open the passenger door just as Pidge flung open their door. “For fuck’s sake—”

Instantly, as soon as he was exposed, his name rose up from the front lawn of his house, and he barely had time to slam his door shut before his cousins and neighbors out on the street came to tackle him. Keith’s door opened as Lance struggled onto the driveway, carrying his nephew in one arm and his other hand claimed by his niece. 

Considering how close San Diego was from the border, he wasn’t surprised to find his relatives from Mexico all gathered on the lawn when Lance wandered up. He smiled weakly and insisted he only came to pick up a few things, but at that exact moment, the front door burst open and his Ma hurried out with a Trader Joe’s bag full of food. 

“Here, take this,” she said, plucking the boy out of his arms, and replacing it with the bag.

“I don’t need all this—” he started, but it was futile. 

“Hunk! Hunk, help him carry this,” she shouted, pointing frantically to where Hunk just stepped out of the SUV. “I’ll get your father to help strap the boards to the car,” she said, patting Lance on the shoulder. She nearly ran off before Lance’s aunt insisted that they could all manage it without him. 

Lance slumped in defeat, and watched as his uncle went to grab the boards one by one out from the garage. There were just two of them—one for him, and the other originally for his brother who moved out and was now too busy to bother surfing anymore. 

“Uh…” Keith started from beside Lance, pointing vaguely at his aunt and uncle as they carried the boards to Pidge and Matt’s SUV. “You… surf?”

“Yeah, a little,” Lance sighed. They watched from the grass as Matt navigated the whole endeavor, and made sure his parents’ SUV wouldn’t retain a single scratch. Once the boards were up on top, his Ma came out with rope they used to secure the boards without a fuss. Hunk walked over to them as they tipped their heads to the side, and watched Lance’s Ma strap an orange flag to the end of one of the boards. 

“I was told to help with this,” Hunk said, taking the bag from Lance’s limp arms. 

“I didn’t expect everyone to be here already,” Lance confessed, and Hunk gave him a solemn pat on the shoulder and walked off.

Keith clapped Lance on the back and started for the car again. The neighbor kids were chucking rubber balls at the windshield on purpose now, and Pidge was viciously trying to chase them away without success. Eventually, Lance watched them climb into the driver’s seat and honk the horn to scare them off. 

“Move you twerps! Before I run you over!” they shouted, and one of the kids had the good sense to scream and run home like they were supposed to before deciding to fuck with Pidge.

Someone tugged at Lance’s hand, and when he looked down, his niece was beaming up at him with her cute, freckled round cheeks. “¿Vendrás a casa?” she asked. 

Lance ducked down to tug her hands back and smile sadly. “No, not today. I’ll see you tomorrow, though! How long are you guys sticking around?”

As she explained how they were only staying for the weekend, Lance’s Ma marched back up the lawn to where they were lingering. She took Lance’s niece by the hand and said to Lance, “You’d better get going if you’re trying to avoid holiday traffic,” she told him, nodding to the car.

Lance stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her neck. She squeezed him around the torso with her one free hand and rubbed his back for a short while before Lance pulled away with a lighter smile. She ruffled his hair, and he couldn’t help but get the sense that she was just grateful that he found his place in college, even if it had taken two entire years.

He hurried off to the SUV and waved goodbye to his family and relatives (and even the ratty neighborhood kids who assaulted Matt and Pidge’s car). He climbed into the passenger’s seat once more and readied the GPS for Ormond Beach.

His Ma was right—traffic _was_ terrible going around LA, but they were able to meet up with Allura and Shiro just north of LA when their travels took them westward. They met off at a truck stop with a wide open parking lot where Keith hopped out with his tote and camera bag, and wandered over to their car. Lance leant against the side of the SUV as Allura and Matt figured out the route they’d take to the coast. He caught himself watching Keith, and promptly turned away to look for Shay and Hunk. They were just chatting with Pidge in the shade provided by the SUV, and the extra surface area of the boards strapped on top of the car.

Before they could leave, Allura lunged up to Lance and grabbed him by the arm. 

“Matt said those boards are yours,” she said, grinning. “I’ve always wanted to try surfing!”

“I could teach you a thing or two,” Lance said, dramatically brushing his knuckles against his tank top with a devilish smile. 

“I wish I could have gone with you and Hunk last year,” she confessed.

“You were busy with the café—don’t worry about it,” he said, and squeezed her around the shoulders. “I miss talking to you.”

“We talk all the time.”

“Yeah, at the _bar_ ,” Lance scoffed with a roll of his eyes. She tended to come in late in the evening just as their shift was closing, and just after leaving the café. Shiro and her talked long after Lance closed up the back and left for the evening. “Doesn’t really count.”

“Sure it does!”

“We don’t hang out anymore,” he insisted, rolling his eyes. It was difficult pretending he didn’t care about it. 

“I know, but I’m always working. Come visit me more often,” she said, squeezing him back before Shiro whistled high over the sound of their conversation. “Looks like we’re talking off. We’ll meet you at the beach.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” he said, and waved to her as she climbed into the driver’s seat and waved back. Keith dropped into the back seat of Shiro’s car, which left one empty spot in the back beside Pidge. Lance claimed it, and watched as Allura pulled out in front of them and guided their smooth drive to the Pacific. 

The sky stretched out over their heads in a brilliant, summer blue with speckles of wispy white clouds here and there along the horizon. The low, gentle sandy hills began to rise up on either side of them as they cruised towards the parking lot marked with a “7AM TO DUSK” sign. The instant the car was stationary, Lance leapt out of his seat and onto the dusty asphalt with a shout of excitement. He flung his arms up at the sight of the beach out beyond the hills, and screamed.

Pidge jumped up beside him and screamed to the wind. They yelled until Allura told them to knock it off. Despite all his supposed hatred for Pidge, Lance leant against them and swayed like the day was drunk and they were light.

Something clicked behind them, and Lance turned at the sound. Keith was looking down at the screen on his camera, and glanced up at them with a soft smile. “Seemed memorable,” he said, and Lance grinned.

Pidge tackled him, though, with their arms around Lance’s neck and shouted, “Memory _this!_ ” 

So of course Keith took a picture of them stumbling around the sandy concrete like drunkards before they were pulled aside to help carry shit to the beach. 

By noon, they were set up on the sand, and Matt split open the volleyball net bag. The pried out the metal posts and dug them into the sand. While he, Shiro, and Allura set it up, Hunk and Lance carried the surfboards out towards the waves, and stuck them against the current of water washing up against the edges of them. Keith was switching lenses on his camera so that he could take pictures from afar, and Pidge photobombed all of them until Hunk shooed them away.

“I want a picture with Lance, get out of the way!” he shouted, waving Pidge off. They cackled, running towards Matt and slamming into him with a lunge, a jump, and a spring. Matt shrieked in the background, and Lance laughed as Hunk came over to hold his board up and pose for Keith.

They paused the show to lather up on sunscreen (except for Lance, who was continuously called a heathen because of it). He badgered Allura the whole time until he was able to drag her out to the water and lay the surfboard on the sand.

“Get on it,” he demanded.

“What? No, no, I want to see you do it first,” she insisted, waving her hands nervously. Lance put his hands on his hips, pouting until she sighed. “Okay, but I’m not ready to start. Can we just sit out on your board for a while? And float around?”

He couldn’t object to that, not when he was dying to get out on the water anyhow. The shed their clothes and left them by the cooler surrounded by beach towels. Lance flattened a hand over his stomach subconsciously, reminded of how he wasn’t at all like Keith. His abs didn’t show, and his brother always called him scrawny—it wasn’t _his_ fault he was mostly limbs and nothing else. Allura tugged him by the hand, though, prompting him to forget his insecurities, and hurry out into the water with his surfboard hitched under his arm. 

The surface of the water was warm until it reached their knees, chilling their feet. A particularly large wave crashed around them, and Lance hefted his board over their heads as Allura shrieked and laughed, the skirt of her bikini bottom caught in the water. She swayed to the side, and held onto Lance’s bicep as they continued. Their toes left the sand, bounding like gravity wasn’t a thing until they were floating, high above the bottom of the ocean.

Lance helped Allura up onto the board first, holding it steady as she climbed up on her stomach, and tipped back onto her bum. She was wearing a brilliant white bikini, and it seemed glaring in comparison to her brown skin. She smiled at him, pushing her damp white hair back from her face. It spiraled into stringy curls around her soft, yet angular face.

“Come on up,” she said, patting the spot in front of her. 

“Okay. Keep it steady for me,” he said, and began his ascent from the far end of the board. The end tipped towards him, and Allura squealed, giggling until they swayed out at the start of the wake far out into the ocean. They decided to coast in, legs dangling so their feet swayed in the chilly, Pacific ocean.

Allura held onto his arms until they were certainly steady. Lance kicked his legs, and kept them focused with his back to the sand, and Allura’s back to the great blue expanse. The sun began to dry their dripping shoulders.

“Shiro said you and Keith have been hanging out a lot,” she started, and Lance groaned. Of course they’d start with this.

“I mean, I _guess—_ ”

“So you two got over that whole… drunken-kiss situation?” she asked, raising one of her slim, manicured eyebrows. 

Lance bristled, cheeks turning pink. “Y-Yeah! Of course we did, I mean—it took ages for me to pin Keith down and talk to him about it. He’s difficult about that sort of stuff.”

“What? So aren’t you guys dating now?” she asked, tipping forward a bit as the waves increased in size, and churned them forward. Lance steadied the board on course.

“Hell no! No, no way,” Lance squeaked waving his hands. “I—It’s complicated. I don’t… He seemed against the idea a while ago, and so we just have this… this _deal_ set up. It’s basically friends with hugging-benefits.”

“Aw, that’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” she said, smiling as he glared at her. “I’m serious! So he’s not okay with feelings, but he’s all about the romantic stuff?”

“No, just hugging. And cuddling. _Lots_ of cuddling,” Lance said, swooning to the side despite himself. He smiled dreamily just thinking about it. “He’s… well, I get the impression that he… Well, he went through a tough breakup before coming here, and I’m under the impression that it’s just now hitting him. I’m just sorta there helping him through it, I guess.”

“That sounds like the McClain thing to do,” she said. “I’m proud of you, Lance. Hang in there, alright? Keith’s a real catch, from everything Shiro’s told me about him.”

Lance blushed, and thanked her for her confidence in him. His hope of dating Keith sparked all over again, and he turned to look back at land where everyone was in the wake aside from Keith, who crouched farther away with his camera up to his face. He lowered it, turning away, and Lance realized that he had his camera trained on the two of them out on the board. 

“You’ve got a fan,” Allura crooned, and Lance splashed her for it. 

The waves increased, and sent them tipping towards land. In a serious of wild events, the board spun to the side, and they hit a wave sideways. They screamed as they watched the wave approach, kicking frantically, and went down laughing under the wave. Lance clung to the board, bursting through the surface laughing. Allura popped up nearby, and scrambled to cling to the board as another wave came in and pushed them to sand. Their feet grazed the surface, and soon they were able to walk back, soaked and dripping with salty sea water.

Allura marched over to Shiro afterwards, waving her arms frantically as she asked if he saw them out on the wave—they managed to stay sitting for a few of them, but collapsed after three or so of the smaller ones. 

Lance wandered over to Hunk’s board, studying Keith out of the corner of his eye. The Holts had an impressive beach umbrella that Keith was now sitting under, wearing Shay’s sunhat, and looking like an absolute introvert crouched over there with his camera. Lance tucked a hand over his mouth, turning away, and searching for Hunk. He couldn’t stand how cute Keith looked over there.

“Hunk! Buddy, let’s go!” Lance shouted, waving to his friend. Hunk was out making drip castles with Shay and Pidge, and stopped to join Lance. 

Hunk brushed his knees off before hurrying over, hands still covered in sand. “You think we’re good out there?” he asked, and Lance gave a so-so gesture. “Nothing intense, alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lance said, laughing. “I saw some better waves south of here.”

Before they headed down the beach, Lance turned back to Keith, and found Keith already watching him. He pointed, to Keith’s camera, and gestured down the near-empty beach. Keith gave him a thumbs up. _Yeah, I’ll take pictures of you guys_. 

“Getting permission from your _boy-frand_ ,” Hunk cooed under his breath, and Lance punched him in the arm for it.

“God, you sound like Pidge,” he groaned, hiking his board up. “Let’s just go.”

Hunk chased after him, laughing his head off. Lance took off jogging, trying to escape his fiend of a friend, and bolted into the water the instant he could. Hunk chased after him then, and together they raced through the water and crashing waves. Lance’s excitement mounted in an unfathomable rate—his heart chased his desire to experience it all at once: the wake, the sand castles, to playing volleyball with Allura, Shiro, and Matt. He wanted to sit next to Keith in the sand and watch it all happen from afar as he and Hunk sat out on their boards with a great distance apart from one another. 

“Ready?” Lance said, wiggling his eyebrows at Hunk as he strapped his ankle to the board. 

“You know it,” he laughed, looking behind him as the wave they sought began rolling in. “Let’s go!”

Lance lifted up on his belly, clutching to the sides of the board. He leapt up and braced his feet apart from one another, catching the wind in his hair, and the sea mist against his skin as he picked up speed and turned with the current. The board sailed smoothly for a first ride, and he hollered at the top of his lungs. 

His heart soared as he looked over at Hunk and raised a thumb’s up. 

The beach grew closer, and over the roar of the waves crashing around them, Lance heard everyone shouting and hollering out by the sand castles. Lance raised his hands up as he coasted to land, churned forward by a wave kicking the end of his board. He wobbled, and crashed into the water with a cry, falling back on his bum. Hunk hopped off his board, laughing his ass off. He tipped over into the sand, yelling, “That was amazing!”

Lance sputtered when a wave rolled over him. He emerged from the water, smiling, and looked back at the others as Pidge raced up, screaming, “Teach me! Teach me!” 

They set up their boards on the sand. Hunk eagerly demonstrated the starting position—lying flat on his stomach, hands clutching the sides of the board. Pidge mimicked him from Lance’s board, and practiced swinging to their feet. Lance crossed his arms, smiling, and felt his cheeks ache from the repeated action of doing so. He couldn’t stop. 

He looked back at Allura and gave her a thumb’s up, just before hearing Keith’s camera click from not too far away. 

“Takin’ pictures of me, buddy?” Lance said, and instantly Keith donned a guilty expression, lowering his camera.

Lance laughed, wandering over. “Lemme see,” he said.

“No—they aren’t edited yet,” he said, clutching his camera to his chest. 

“Keith gets defensive over his photography,” Shiro warned from the water, kicking sand off his toes as Lance tried to tug on Keith’s arm to pull the camera closer. Keith held it away from him with a pout.

“Aw, come on, lemme see,” Lance whined.

“No, stop fucking fighting me, asshat,” Keith shouted, shoving his hand against Lance’s chest and pushing as hard as he could (which was pretty damn hard, Lance had to admit). Still, when Keith turned away, Lance wrapped his arms around him from behind, clutching onto Keith’s wrists. “No! Don’t make me drop it—sand is a camera’s mortal enemy!”

“Is it really?” Lance said, hesitating just long enough for Keith to duck and dodge Lance’s grabby-hands. 

“ _Yes_. If a grain of sand so much as gets in a crevice, consider it five-hundred bucks down the drain,” Keith said, kicking his foot out at Lance before making a break for the safety of the towel. Lance frowned, shoulders slumping as he watched Keith stick his camera back in its designated bag, and zipped it shut. 

Thankfully, though, Keith walked over to Lance with a smile and pat him on the shoulder. “Don’t look so depressed. It’s not flattering on you.”

Lance bristled. Keith walked off, and Lance couldn’t help but bark, “Sh-Shut up!”

Keith glanced back at him, looking smug like he _knew_ Lance couldn’t stop staring at the tattoo that wrapped up his bicep and swirled over the back of his exposed shoulder. Lance turned away, ears pink. Keith sauntered off, and Lance recovered a moment later to chase after him.

Keith was ankle-deep in the water before someone slammed into him from behind. He swore he heard the telltale signs of feet cruising through the sand, but wrongly dismissed it. It earned him a face-full of water, and the weight of Lance on his back. s

“ _Lance!_ ” he shrieked, pushing up onto his arms as Lance rolled to the side, cackling like the devil he was. Keith whipped a handful of water at Lance, and shoved him down into the sand.

“Whoa! Hey, no fighting!” Lance shrieked, kicking and screaming as Keith slapped his hand over Lance’s mouth and shoved his face under the water. 

“No more talking!” Keith said, ducking his head back to avoid the hand Lance flailed around in search of his face. 

Lance clutched at Keith’s shoulder, and then his shirt, and slapped his palm flat on Keith’s chest. 

“What’re you—” Keith started, only to be tackled in the stomach with Lance’s vicious Tickle Monsters (his fingers). 

Keith buckled instantly, cursing and screaming with laughter as Lance shoved him back, tickling him even when Keith kneed him in the chest and scratched his leg. Keith never laughed so hard in his entire fucking life, and his stomach ached as he tried to pry Lance off of him. Tears sprung to his eyes, and his cheeks hurt. The last time he was tickled was when he was eight and Pidge decided it was a good idea.

They were punched in the eye for it.

Thankfully, though, Lance pulled away before he could walk away with a black eye. Keith couldn’t even sit up, and Lance had to pull him out of the next wave. Keith’s hair fell, soaked, over his forehead as he panted, clutching at his stomach.

After a second, Lance opened his mouth to speak, only to have his breath punched out of him when Keith smacked him _hard_ in the chest.

“No tickling,” he said.

Lance fell over laughing, legs still tangled around Keith’s. 

When they settled down, Lance followed Keith’s gaze to where Matt was facing off against Shiro and Allura on the makeshift court. He set the ball for himself, and spiked it over the net to where Allura dove to save it. Shiro recovered it quickly, setting it across the net for her to spike. She slammed it down into the sand next to Matt, and landed with a yelp of excitement. 

She turned to high-five Shiro, and as they passed one another, she smacked his ass.

“Do you think we’ll be able to beat them?” Lance asked.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I know all of their routines. I’ve been spying on their practice sessions,” Keith said, and Lance had to do a double take to realize that Keith was being entirely serious. “What?”

“You… You went on _spy missions_ and you never _told me_?” Lance hissed, furious. “I want to go on those!”

“You’re literally the loudest person I’ve ever met,” Keith said. “You’d be shit at stealth missions.”

“Lemme try…!” Lance moaned, flopping towards him in the water. Keith scrambled out of the way, and escaped Lance’s Tickle Monsters (his fingers) before they could fall into that pit of destruction again.

Lance slumped, pouting in disbelief. All this time… Keith had been one step ahead of him. Though, now that he thought about it, Keith always seemed to be several steps ahead of him regardless. Keith was several steps ahead of Lance before they even _met_ (the guy wasn’t even in _college_ anymore!), so really, Lance shouldn’t have been surprised that Keith was thinking so far ahead. It likely helped that Keith _lived_ with Shiro. It was easier to spy on people you lived with.

And it wasn’t that Lance was underestimating Hunk and Pidge—he saw Hunk in action before when he really _meant it_ , so he had no doubt that Hunk would bring his A-game to the tournament. Lance just… felt bad, spying on his best man. 

Keith hurried off to join the volleyball match, and since they just now had even teams of two, Lance wandered away, straying one last look over his shoulder as Keith high-fived Matt and got into his fighting position—knees bent, low to the ground. He focused his hands between his knees, tensed and ready for Shiro’s killer serve for when it came.

Lance walked up to his board where Pidge lunged up to their feet, arms out to steady their stance. He tipped his head, and tried not to look too impressed. Hunk, on the other hand, squeaked in excitement.

“Yes! Perfect!”

“Okay—can we try it out on the water?”

“Nothing serious,” Hunk said. “And don’t feel bad if you fall on the first go.”

Lance snorted. “Yeah, it took Hunk about a dozen tries to get it right his first day,” he said, grinning at the thought of all Hunk’s stories about when he first started out surfing. 

“To be fair, that was at _least_ a decade ago,” Hunk said, and hesitated, looking horrified. “Oh my God, I can say a decade ago and I’d still be ten years old…”

“Old man,” Pidge teased, sticking their tongue out. 

And, so, Lance crossed his arms and stood beside Shay as Hunk took Pidge out into the water. Shay tipped her sunhat a tad, so that she could watch as their heads disappeared behind the waves after a while. 

“You think they’ll make it?” she asked.

“No way. Absolutely not,” Lance said, snorting. “I mean, have you ever tried water skiing? No one’s gotten _that_ on the first try.”

“I did,” she said, turning to him.

They blinked at one another until Lance rolled his eyes and scoffed.

“Whatever. All I’m saying is that no one’s perfect on the first try. And it’s, like, tradition to face-plant during water sports,” he said, shrugging.

Nearly five minutes later, their jaws were in the sand as they watched Pidge cruise up in front of them until the point their board hit the sand. 

“You’ve _got_ to be _kidding me!_ ” Lance groaned, throwing his arms down. 

Pidge stumbled off the board, and landed triumphantly, hands on their hips. “What can I say, McClain—I’m a natural,” they said, beaming. Shay managed a slow, but impressed applause, raising her eyebrows at Hunk, who wandered up after crashing not far away in the water. He hefted his board under his arm, and gestured madly to Pidge.

“Did you see that! That was incredible, dude, way to go!” he said, and high-fived Pidge on the way to Shay. Pidge beamed brighter, perhaps just to rub it in Lance’s shocked face.

 

* * *

 

Volleyball on the beach turned out to be the perfect way to spend the Fourth of July. By the time dinner rolled around, they were all spent, sweaty, and ready for time in the water after eating—much to Lance’s dismay after thorough scoldings throughout his childhood in regards to eating before swimming. 

They gathered out on the water, jumping up with the waves so that they all made slow descents back to the sand, laughing the entire way. Lance’s eyes burned from the salty water, but it didn’t matter, especially when he could still see Keith across the way with his head sticking out of the water, submerged all the way up his shoulders. 

Keith lowered further, ducking his mouth under the water as another wave came, and churned him up off the sand. He couldn’t stop looking at Lance (and the others, of course, but mostly Lance). His chest ached just thinking about Lance, and Lotor, and Lance again. Every time his ex came to mind, it felt like the world was suddenly crushing him, and the irrationality of it had his brain wrangling him back in saying, “ _No, this isn’t like you, stop being so fucking dramatic_.”

Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that came with upending such a massive part of his life, and the guilt he felt when he thought he was replacing that gap with Lance. He didn’t want to use Lance like that. He didn’t want Lance to be a rebound guy, but he didn’t _want_ anyone other than that cute, tan, Mexican boy screaming at the top of his lungs when Pidge tackled him into the water.

Lance crashed into the water, and sprung up with a vengeance. He raced over to Pidge, who stood up, laughing, and then screamed when they realized Lance was after them. They ran, knees up high because of the water, chasing one another until they were out of breath. Keith grinned under the surface.

Matt had a bluetooth stereo system readied on the beach, tucked atop the closed cooler lid. The music filled the beach with color and energy, and each blast of the bass sent the cooler shaking underneath it, and the contents within quaking. Out on the water, Keith could hear all the lyrics without difficulty, and the fact that when Lance hijacked the bluetooth, both Hunk and Allura gasped in realization—they all knew  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UV0QGLmYys">the song</a> that Keith never heard once in his life.

Lance sidled up to Hunk with his shoulders shimmying, singing, “ _Rebuscando en las heridas del pasa-do—No voy a per-der—Yo no quiero ser un tipo de otro lado…!_ ”

Allura kicked her leg out of the water, and followed it’s motion as she strode across the shallow water singing, “ _A tu manera… descomplicado—En una bici que te lleve a todos lados—!_ ”

Lance clutched his heart, grabbing Allura by the shoulder with the other. They belted the lyrics with soul, with fervor, and broke down dancing when a chorus of what sounded like jazzy harmonicas started up and trilled with the guitar that kicked in when Allura started singing Shakira’s part again. Hunk and Lance serenaded her, and they sang in harmony (or as harmonious as they could as three individuals without vocal training). 

Keith crossed his arms from farther off, head tipped to the side as Shiro and he watched with similar, impressed smiles. Keith wasn’t much of a dancer—never had a reason to be—but he used to _love_ going out with Lotor and their friends to clubs around San Francisco. It was the only times he danced and enjoyed it. 

He wondered what dancing with Lance would be like.

He hoped Shiro didn’t notice how he blushed at the thought. 

Keith left then, afraid of being caught staring at Lance, and took to the sand where he sought out Hunk, Pidge, and Shay’s sand castles. He began digging, and shoveled out mounds of sand to create the makings of a fine chair. He sat in the divot, back resting against the hedge of sand behind him, and started making armrests. When he finished with that, it was just in time to see a shadow approach from behind, and then come to crouch beside him. When he looked, Lance was there, tipping his head as he held out the neck of one of Keith’s lemonades.

“Want some?” he asked, and Keith took it. 

“What about you?” he asked, and Lance dropped down onto his bum with a shrug. “We’ll split it if you don’t want the full thing. I know you don’t drink very often.”

“That sounds good to me,” he said, and they smiled at one another before Lance reached over the armrest and began digging through the sand to create a makeshift cup holder. Keith popped the top on the lemonade and took the first few gulps before passing it along. When he finished, he handed it off to Lance, who took small, tentative sips. 

“Have you ever gotten drunk before?” Keith asked, leaning back.

“Not… really,” Lance confessed, and sighed. “I know. Sounds kinda immature or… ignorant. Like I haven’t even properly drunk alcohol yet.”

“There’s no pressure,” Keith said. “Getting shitfaced isn’t fun. I can attest to that on _many_ occasions.”

Lance handed the bottle back. Keith drank again from it before resting it in Lance’s cup holder. 

“Why do you get drunk?” he asked, and Keith raised an eyebrow. “I mean, like, do you do it for _fun_ or for other reasons…?”

“Other reasons, I think,” he said, squinting at the sun. It was nearly parallel with them, across the horizon, beyond the water. “It’s difficult for my brain to shut off sometimes. Alcohol just sort of… amplifies my happiness. Depending on the booze. Sometimes it has the opposite effect—I can’t drink straight vodka without feeling shitty.”

“I tried vodka once. It wasn’t fun,” Lance said, and they both laughed. “I guess I’m just afraid of who I’ll turn into if I get shitfaced. I don’t want to be the annoying drunk, or the sad drunk.”

“Well, if you’re either of those things, I won’t take offense or get pissed at you,” Keith said. “You can’t trust what anyone says or does when they’re drunk. That’s what I’ve learned, anyways. A lot of people make it sound like drinking brings out the real you.”

“Takes away the filter.”

“Right, right. But you’re you _with_ the filter. Like, the fact that you decide to censor that shit means you know what your limits. It doesn’t make you a bad person to have awful thoughts on occasion,” he said, and looked down at his hands. He pulled his knees up higher, shielding his bare chest and abdomen.

Lance fell quiet for a moment, and Keith feared he said too much. This is what he got for letting his filter break around Lance. He said stupid shit like that and made things awkward. It seemed he was an expert at it—

“I… don’t know. You without a filter was pretty cool,” Lance said, and Keith nearly broke skin with how tightly he was digging his nails into his legs. “I-I’m gonna go see what Hunk’s doing!” Lance squeaked, panicked, and took off half a second later like a crab came out of the sand and pinched his ass. Keith watched him go, eyes wide, and wondered if they were both thinking about the time Keith kissed Lance out on the street corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I- I- I dunno. You're pretty cool without a filter, bro. No homo bro."
> 
>  
> 
> [girlskylark](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)  
> [llstarcasterll](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/)


	12. the boyfriend discount

Lance’s forearms burned from repeatedly bumping the ball from Shay to Hunk as they practiced spikes on him. It was getting dark, but it was just light enough for them to still see the sand kick up around Lance’s feet as he skidded to the side, and caught the ball with a swift lift to the right where Hunk was waiting for it. He ducked underneath it, fingertips raised and ready to hoist it higher for Shay to spike. 

Matt’s speakers had a cool outer rim of color that faded between ranges of the rainbow. There, Keith was helping himself to one of Allura’s craft beers. He popped open the top and grinned eagerly at the smoke that lifted out of the foggy green glass. As he tipped the bottle to his lips, he glanced over at the trio practicing off by the net, and watched Lance catch his tenth bump in a row.

Lance shouted triumphantly, and they continued to count with each spike. By thirteen, they were all rather tired, and Shay accidentally missed Lance by a solid ten paces to the left, and though Lance dove through the sand, he didn’t catch it. 

He sat up off the ground, shaking sand from his hair as Hunk hurried over to help him up. Shay ran off to get the ball, and came back to dribble it off of Lance’s exposed back. He yelped and ran away, screaming, “Not my back! Not my back! I think I got a sunburn!”

Keith chuckled to himself and cupped a hand over his mouth to shout, “That’s what you get for not wearing sunscreen!”

He swore Lance was about to storm over to him, but Keith was already getting up from the ground, dusting off his swim trunks, and heading for his camera bag.

It was too dark for pictures now, and so he took the bag over to Shiro, who produced the car keys from Allura’s beach bag. “Thanks, I’ll be right back with this,” Keith promised, dangling them in front of him before turning away.

He marched without shoes onto the concrete, and grimaced at the sensation of sand sticking between his toes, and drying out his skin. He approached Shiro’s car and popped open the trunk. Instead if setting his bag inside, he took a breather, and sat on the edge of the trunk with his face to the sky, eyes closed, listening for the sound of his friends out on the beach. 

It was a good day.

Meanwhile, Lance stood beside Shay with a frown, watching Keith walk off and disappear behind the sand dunes. Shiro walked over to him, and he turned only when they were mere feet away from each other.

Shay nudged Lance in the arm, grinning like the fiend she was. “Go after him,” she said in a whisper. 

“No, he’s probably overwhelmed. Being around people all day,” Lance insisted, waving his hand dismissively.

“I don’t think he’d mind seeing you,” Shiro insisted. Hearing that confirmation from Keith’s _brother_ , the person who seemed to know everything about Keith, had Lance stuttering and blushing. He ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck as Shay cooed and insisted that he go along and follow Keith to the cars.

After being badgered for a solid minute, Lance huffed and started forward. “Fine! Alright, alright, I’ll go,” he said, but smiled as he looked back at them. He pointed to them sternly. “I’ll be _right back_.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Shay teased, and Shiro rolled his eyes.

Lance turned and took off jogging.

He climbed the path layered with packed sand from other people treading by. It merged with the concrete, and from there, he could see the parking lot, and the trunk that was lifted to frame Keith’s profile as he looked up to the sky. Lance hesitated, realizing that he was right—Keith probably needed a breather. He didn’t need Lance badgering him like Shay and Shiro badgered him to come over here.

He turned to leave, and stopped when he heard Keith say, “Hey. What’s up?”

Lance flinched and turned back around, blushing as he smiled innocently and waved his hands in front of him. “Nothing! Nothing, I was just… checking on you. Wasn’t sure why you ran off like that.”

Hesitantly, he stepped closer, and saw Keith’s brow furrow. “I wasn’t running off.”

“Sure buddy, sure.”

“I’m serious! I get nervous about leaving my camera out in the open, especially now that it’s dark. You know Pidge stole it once, right? I thought I’d just lost five hundred bucks,” Keith deadpanned, frowning at Lance. 

Lance stepped up, eyebrow raised. “I still don’t believe you that Pidge stole it.”

“As them yourself. Sure they wouldn’t lie about it—I’m convinced they’re proud,” he confessed, turning back to the sky. They were too close to the city to see the stars, but those they could see were bright, and haloed by the glow of the moon rising to its peak. It was barely nine at night. “We’ll probably have to head back soon. There’s probably gonna be shit traffic on the way otherwise. Drunk people and all that,” he said, and Lance looked back down. Keith had his face turned away.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Lance sighed. “Today was fun.”

“I didn’t expect to, but… I had fun, too,” Keith said, laughing lightly. “The beach isn’t really my thing.”

“I get that, but I also don’t get why you’re into beach volleyball then,” Lance said, laughing. Keith rolled his eyes, and then they were looking at each other again.

Keith didn’t move when Lance stepped closer. He kept his eyes on Lance’s face, moving from those blue eyes down past his tanned, freckled cheeks. He tried not to stray lower, but being so close to Lance’s lips had his heart racing, and his desperation climbing all over again when Lance hesitated a few inches from him.

“Is this okay?” he asked, and Keith swallowed hard. Sure, he heard Lance whisper before, and underneath the covers it was so intimate, but now? _Fuck_ , now Lance’s voice was dark chocolate and ice cream with cherries on top, and _damn,_ did Keith want to lick up every word he said in an instant.

Keith nodded wordlessly, Adam’s apple moving as Lance placed his hand along the back of Keith’s hot, sunburnt neck. His fingers were cool, and Keith relaxed at the touch, so that by the time Lance sealed their lips together, he was wholly ready for it.

Something sharp popped in the distance, and caused them all to turn at the high-pitched squeal fizzling up into the sky farther south, over the ocean. The white spark ascended, and slowed mid-air before bursting into an array of reds and blues. More sprung up over the water, but they were too far within the sand dunes to see the reflection of each firework as they popped in the sky with the colors of the American flag.

Lance leaning his hand against the trunk beside Keith’s legs as they watched, heads tilting back as another firework ruptured high in the sky, closer to the southern horizon. Keith turned away, watching the colors illuminate Lance’s smile before Lance ever turned it back to him.

Keith placed his hand over Lance’s then. He pushed the pads of his fingers against the car hood, smoothing them out between Lance’s fingers.

“Is this okay?” he asked, and if possible, Lance beamed brighter.

“Yeah! Yeah, of course it is, why wouldn’t it be? I mean we just—” Lance blabbered, looking everywhere but Keith as he flushed all shades of red.

Keith laughed, dipping towards him so he could hug Lance around the torso, and press his smile into Lance’s bare shoulder. “Cool. I’m glad it’s okay,” he said, but the words were enveloped by another firework exploding in the distance.

Lance wrapped his arms around Keith, and trailed his fingers over Keith’s bare shoulders as he watched the fireworks burst. Keith tipped his head to the side to see, and they stayed like that through the course of the firework display as the clock neared nine-thirty.

Shortly afterwards, they laughed at the sound of their friends clapping and hollering on the beach. It seemed to be a screaming match between Pidge and their brother, and so Keith yelled back incomprehensible words that had Lance laughing his ass off, falling on the ground on his knees with a groan.

Keith immediately stopped. “What? What is it?”

“Oh my God, I need to piss so bad,” Lance moaned. “No bathroom—too much lemonade—”

“Fuck, dude, just pee in the bushes.”

“What _bushes_!” Lance shrieked, flopping on his back with his arms out, as if to gesture to the severe lack of vegetation in general. Everything was either sand, water, or concrete.

“Dude, Matt and I pissed in the dunes like… an _hour ago_ ,” Keith said, and Lance fake-sobbed onto the ground as he struggled up onto all fours. He whined from that position until Keith slapped Lance’s ass as hard as he could. A little pee came out when Lance screamed.

It took a few deep breaths for Lance to get his bladder under control so that he could stand. He shot a glare at Keith, who seemed pleased with himself for having slapped Lance’s ass. 

“If I wasn’t so urinally constipated I’d get you back for that,” Lance hissed, and started to lumber away as Keith covered his laughter with his hand.

“That isn’t even a fucking word!” he cried, but Lance was too busy pissing into the sand on the other side of the Holt’s vehicle where Keith couldn’t see. Being in swim trunks made the entire ordeal more difficult, but thankfully, his stream of urine sputtered out just in time to hear the others making a racket at the end of the parking lot road merging with the beach sand. 

Lance walked up to Keith and tried to hold his hand.

“Ew, fuck no, you just touched your dick with that,” Keith whined, only to have Lance slap his entire hand on Keith’s arm. “ _Ew!_ Ew, ew, ew—Get—! Get off of me!” Keith shrieked, squirming and writhing to get out of Lance’s arms as he clamped them around Keith from behind, and hefted him off his feet. “Dick fingers! Dick fingers!”

“I didn’t think you’d complain about something like that,” Pidge said as they walked up. Keith was too inconsolable to reason with that, considering Lance refused to let him go. 

Keith slumped, exhausted, and became deadweight in Lance’s arms. Lance staggered, and began to topple over. When Lance at last let him go, Keith bolted, and ran to where Allura was carrying the cooler. He took it from her to act like he was helping out, and so Lance was left to his own devices, grinning like the absolute fool he was.

 

* * *

 

Lance’s hands leapt over the net. He descended, and landed squarely on his feet, pivoting, and bolting back to the line marked on the gym floorboards. Keith counted down, and together, they ran for the net, lunging up, and coming face to face with the net between them. Keith was always a good few inches higher than him, and slapped the tips of Lance’s fingers.

“Close,” Keith said, panting. They went in spurts of five—racing to the net, practicing the speed at which Lance flew threw the air. He would never be a Keith, necessarily, but they couldn’t ignore the times when their plans would crumble, and Lance would have to spike instead. 

“Swing your arms back further.”

“Like I’m Naruto running?” Lance asked, and ducked forward with his arms flung back.

Instead of understanding the reference, Keith gasped, praising him. “Yeah! Exactly like that.”

“Fuck, dude, I was only kidding,” Lance scoffed, straightening up. Keith lowered his arms and frowned. Lance rolled his eyes, and smiled at the cute pout on Keith’s lips. “Fine, I’ll do it like that from now on.”

Keith turned away hesitantly, but pleased that Lance was finally getting it. “Didn’t Allura ever teach you how to properly spike.”

“Not really. I think she just assumed that I’d be more of a libero,” he confessed, tapping his finger on his chin. “And she always said I was relatively average at spiking, so we never had to work on it much.”

Keith walked over to the volleyball as Lance continued practicing his form. He came to stand off to the side, nearer the net as Lance skidded back to the line, turned, and bolted to the net once more. Learning how to set was one thing, and then having to recover the ball when the opposite team returned it? He needed to be ready for that, which involved spurts of sprinting, and sore heels from digging his sneakers into the floorboards.

Keith drilled the ball into the ground before preparing to set for Lance. Lance hesitated, stuck at the line as Keith looked to the ceiling, exposing all the lines of the vine tattoo lining the left side of his neck. It was speckled with red berries that Lance tended to stare at in bed, underneath the covers when the sun returned and filtered through the fabric. It hurt his heart looking at them, too far away to touch—

Keith vaulted the ball over his head, nimble fingers firmly rising up with the ball before falling to the sides. Lance watched the motion as if time had slowed, and it didn’t kick back into gear until Keith stared back at him, and they both listened to the sound of the ball hitting the floorboards.

“You’ve gotta be fucking me,” Keith groaned, slapping a hand on his forehead. “You missed it! What’re you doing over there?!”

Lance immediately bristled, shrieking, voice shrill, “I got distracted! Not my fault!”

Keith blushed, flustered for an instant before cursing and saying, “Stop looking at me! Focus on the ball!”

Lance’s eyes immediately dropped to Keith’s crotch, and they both hollered. Lance covered his eyes, apologizing profusely before being hammered with Keith’s hands slapping him on the arms and shoulders and back. “Not those ones!” Keith yelled.

“I didn’t mean to!” Lance cried, crouching on the ground until he curled up on the floor, tipped onto his side. There were a few other people in the gym who stopped to look at them as Keith beat Lance into the ground.

Once satisfied, Keith popped back up with a huff, flicking his hair back and tying it in a ponytail. He shook his head, dismissing Lance’s immaturity for the moment. “ _Whatever_. Just let me fucking set for you, and quit looking at my dick. It’s not even _out!_ I’m not even wearing _spandex_!”

Lance blanched from the ground, struggling to rise. “D-Do you _plan_ on wearing spandex?!” he squeaked, red-faced as Keith turned to scowl at him. “Oh _God!_ I’m going to die, save me!” he said, crossing his fingers over his chest. As he prayed to the Lord Almighty, Keith fetched the ball they were supposed to be focusing on, and spiked it at Lance. Lance’s instincts kicked in, and he punched it before it could hit him in the side.

The ball went _soaring_ over the net and into the bleachers. It rattled the entire gym, and the noise had everyone flinching. Keith looked like he was preparing to punch Lance with the way he scrunched up his t-shirt sleeves onto his shoulders, exposing his ripped, delicious biceps and oh God, Lance couldn’t stop staring at this boy’s bod.

It would be the death of him, surely, because he certainly didn’t see Keith swing at him until he was on the ground, a bruise blossoming on his arm. 

“Ouchie!” he moaned, rolling on the floor again.

They didn’t get much done that day.

Keith dragged Lance out of the gym like a mother escorting her child out of the grocery store after a tantrum. Lance tumbled onto the locker room bench as Keith unlocked their door and chucked Lance’s clothes at him. They splattered across his chest, and fell in a disarray on the floor. Keith yanked off his tennis shoes and chucked them into his duffle. 

“Are you mad at me for punching the ball?” Lance asked in a childishly guilty voice that had Keith scowling at him from the locker.

“Can you stop fucking using the word ‘ball’ for, like, twenty-four hours? Is that too much to ask?” Keith said.

Lance pouted down at his lap, rubbing his finger up and down his freshly shaven leg. His skin felt smooth and smelled like lavender—not that Keith would ever know, unless for some reason he found his head wedged between Lance’s thighs.

So yeah, Keith wouldn’t find that out any time soon.

Keith walked over until his feet were in view of where Lance had his eyes focused. Lance trailed his eyes up the length of Keith’s bare legs, past his underwear, and the hand he held his jeans in. 

Keith leant over, pushing the jeans against the bench beside Lance. He looked like he was preparing to clobber Lance, and so he remained still, and felt a shiver leap up his spine when Keith’s eyes dipped to Lance’s lips. A tuft of his bangs fell from the clip in his hair as he tipped his head, and smirked at Lance.

Lance unintentionally leant forward, only to be pushed back by Keith’s hand on his shoulder.

“One condition,” he said sharply. “Stop being so fucking immature.” 

With that, Keith backed off and snapped his jeans out before stepping one foot in after the other. He hitched them up and zipped the crotch up, concealing every band of inked skin aside from the holes on his knees. He grinned at Lance in all his flustered glory.

Lance cleared his throat and stood up, preparing to change. “Whatever,” he huffed, turning his back on Keith as he pried his shirt off. If only he knew that was Keith’s kryptonite because _damn_ , did he want to see Lance with a full back tattoo or _what?_ Just thinking about being able to ink Lance up had Keith sweating from the nerves and excitement of getting a new Flesh Canvas.

Keith pointedly glared at the locker in front of him until Lance was done stripping and now fully clothed. He looked down to zip up his duffle, and tossed it over his shoulder. He nudged past Lance, avoiding him at all costs. Now as _not_ the time to lose his head. If he indulged every romantic notion running through Lance’s head, they’d both be goners by morning.

“I’ve got work, but I’ll text you when I’m done. Keep me posted on if you wanna get together or not,” Keith said, waving his phone dismissively over his shoulder before stuffing it into his back pocket. 

“Yeah, I dunno. I’m closing tonight so I might just crash at my place,” Lance confessed. “And… I was honestly wondering if… you have any openings?”

Keith hesitated just outside the locker room. Of course his rational brain knew what opening Lance was talking about, but still his immaturity made him nearly say, “I’ll show you _my_ opening.” He put a hand on his forehead, horrified. _Oh God, I’m turning into Lance_ , he thought.

He cleared his throat. “For a, uh, to get a tattoo?” he said. “Would you want to, um… schedule for a consulting meeting, or just…”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Dude, you’ve already designed the damn thing. I don’t need to be consulted about it,” he said, laughing. “And my paycheck ended up being way more than I anticipated, and with the tips at this rate I’m basically set for the next two months.”

Keith laughed, and rolled his head back on his shoulders as he looked away. It did wonders in reassuring Lance that he completely wanted this guy with delicious neck tattoos to put his mark on Lance. Lance laughed, trying to look as confident and flirtatious as possible when Keith glanced back at him, biting his lip.

“Why now?” Keith asked, crossing his arms. He shook his head. “Impulsive ‘cause now you have cash?”

“No, I—I just love your art, dude,” Lance said. “And I’ve been thinking about the sketches you made since you showed them to me. I want the real deal.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, and are you gonna ask for the boyfriend discount?” he asked, and Lance’s eyes widened. Keith burst out laughing, and Lance’s expression crumbled. Keith started walking away.

“You’re really gonna pull that out of my hands after saying it?” Lance whined, chasing after him. 

“ _We_ are _not_ dating. But I’ll give you the Pidge discount,” Keith said, pointing his finger accusingly at Lance. Lance hesitated, and instinctively grabbed for Keith’s hand. Keith tried to pull away, but Lance was adamant and desperate for more validation. “I was _kidding_ , Lance. Oh my God, you really wanna date me _now?_ ”

“Yes.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Keith said, laughing. He yanked Lance’s hand closer and bit it so that he’d let go. He hefted his duffle so the strap went over his head, and rested on his shoulder. “I told you: I don’t need that shit so stop giving me the goddamn puppy eyes.”

Lance moped after Keith despite being repeatedly told not to mope about it. Still, Keith entertained him, and so Lance figured that deep down, Keith enjoyed every bit of it. Lance was just stroking his ego, and Keith was thriving on it.

Keith held open the door for him.

“I’ll talk to Nyma about it. She handles all the scheduling,” he said. 

Lance’s heart skipped. This was actually happening. The first step towards complete rebellion and the risk of being disowned. It was perfect, especially when he was facilitating it all through Keith.

“G-Great! Yeah, that sounds awesome,” Lance said. “I, uh… well we could probably start on a…”

“Monday, yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Keith said. “‘Cause the bar’s closed Mondays. After practice, maybe? Because generally you shouldn’t—well, I guess it depends on where you’re thinking of getting it.”

“I don’t know. Probably somewhere I can cover it up.”

“Like your…?” _Back_ , Keith thought.

_My ass_ , Lance thought. “Yeah, I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

“You better. I gotta make sure it works wherever you fucking put it,” Keith said, jabbing his finger into Lance’s shoulder. “I gotta get going. Talk to you later.”

Lance slowed on the sidewalk as he watched Keith jog away to catch his bus to Nunchi. He stopped fully at the edge of the road, his sigh fading into a full-fledged smile. He punched his fists into the air again and again, bouncing on his feet in a weird, impromptu celebratory dance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, shit goes sideways. Since I abandoned you all this weekend, I'll post again later tomorrow!


	13. making enemies: a learning curve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith go to Nunchi for Lance's tattoo sesh.

“I’m kind of nervous. Like, what if we lose in the first bracket?” Lance wondered aloud as he waited for his drink to come up. He turned to Keith, who was equipped in his summer best—sunglasses, ponytail, cutoff shirt, and athletic shorts. 

Keith sipped on his tea, brow tense, and looked sharply at Lance before saying, “The chances that we’ll be going against people like Shiro right off the bat is slim.”

“I know. But… what if we do? Like, what if our first match is Shiro and Allura?” 

“Then that’d be anticlimactic as fuck and bad writing if this were a book,” Keith said. He turned to scowl out the window as Lance’s name was called up front. He hurried to snatch his drink and a straw. As he walked back up to Keith, he counted to three before stabbing his straw through the plastic film. “And I think we’re ready for the weekend.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, honestly,” he said, and held the door open for Lance. He reached into his tote bag and took out his sketch book as they continued their trek to Nunchi. “I’m gonna show you the final sketch now so you can think it over during the walk.”

He flipped to the page where a transparent paper was folded neatly among pen drawings of Lance’s tattoo. It was a torrent of water tumbling down and curling against the invisible edges of a diamond. Lance knew he really shouldn’t love every sketch Keith showed him, and it required Shay and Hunk’s help to actually decide upon the top three Keith made. This seemed like the most fitting for where Lance planned on getting the tattoo.

Lance sucked in a few chewy bobas and munched on them as he studied the design. There were fine details cutting between the broader strokes outlining the current of the water. The sharper, thinner lines were broken and dotted, and reminded Lance that this was _Keith’s_ doing. Keith sat up the night before drawing transparencies of the tattoo, and thinking about the deliberateness with which Keith speckled the lines made it all the better.

Lance was bubbly all the way to Nunchi because of it.

Keith took his sketchbook back, laughing as he tipped the spiral binding against Lance’s ear. He pushed Lance away like that, and wandered ahead. “Just to warn you, anywhere on the upper part of the spine is kind of painful…”

“Yeah, well, are you suggesting I get a tramp stamp instead?” Lance said, hand on his hip. 

“Fuck no. I don’t need to see your _ass crack_ ,” he snorted, and would have continued laughing had he never opened the front door to Nunchi that day.

Keith immediately froze in the doorway, and Lance stuttered to a halt behind him, peering around to see what the matter was. Nothing was blocking their path, but there _was_ an individual who captured all of Keith’s attention.

The man was Latino and had his heavy, black hair spun into a braid down his back. When he turned, Lance caught sight of the tattoos spread over his shoulders, and how familiar they looked from constantly studying Keith’s art. For a moment, Lance thought that this man was just a customer, but his brain knew better than that with the way Keith reacted.

Keith stormed in, looking sharply around the reception area. The lady behind the counter, the blonde girl by the name Nyma, looked flustered, and prepared to say something before Keith spoke up.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Lotor?” he hissed at the man.

Lance caught the door as it was about to shut on him, staring as the man looked from him and his bubble tea, to Keith and the drink threatening to spill in his hands. Keith was clenching the plastic like it had a death sentence. 

“I… was looking for you,” Lotor said, clearing his throat. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“It’s been eight fucking months, shithead,” Keith seethed. “What are you _doing here_?”

Lance hurried forward when tea began to bubble around Keith’s straw. He snatched it out of Keith’s hand and nudged it over to the receptionist. “Whoa, hey, let’s just calm down for a second—” he started, but stopped as soon as Lotor crossed his arms and _shit_ those were muscles. 

Those were real fucking muscles. 

Lance stopped, darting his eyes up to meet Lotor’s slitted ones. “And who are you, exactly?” he asked, and nearly stepped towards Lance had Keith not got between them.

“He’s none of your fucking business, that’s what,” Keith said.

Lotor glared at Lance once more before looking down to stare at Keith. They studied one another for a solid minute before Lotor sighed and turned away, staring at the abstract art over the foyer couches. 

“I signed up for the beach volleyball tournament this weekend,” he said. “You know, the roster your _name is on_. I wasn’t sure if you’d be competing again this year, and I wanted to see you.”

“So here the fuck we are,” Keith hissed. “What do you want?”

“I’d like to know… _two things_ , really. One: why you ran off and two: who the hell Lance McClain is so I can kick his ass,” Lotor said, and Lance nearly had an aneurysm. He’d been staring at the sheer size of Lotor’s muscles the entire time wondering if they were bigger than Shiro’s. Shiro’s were almost the diameter of Lance’s head.

Lotor stared at him, and Lance felt the strong need to shit himself.

“Well it’s _not_ him, asshat. He’s a client,” Keith said, waving his hand in front of Lance.

“My name’s Edgar,” Lance said, and Keith turned to look at him like he just could not fathom the size of Lance’s stupidity. He mouthed, “What the fuck?” before Lotor distracted him again.

“And the other question?” Lotor asked, tipping his head to the side. “I spent _days_ wondering where the fuck you went! I was so worried about you!”

“Yeah, I’m sure you fucking were,” Keith huffed. “Can we take this outside? Maybe somewhere that _isn’t_ my place of work?” 

Lotor nodded, and followed Keith wordlessly out the door. Lance started after them, but was stopped by Keith pushing him back with a hand on his chest saying, “Stay out of it—I mean it.” He pointed sharply at Lance before leaving, slamming the door behind him. Lance stared at them through the foyer window until they were gone down the street, voices muffled through the glass. Nyma leaned over in her desk to see the action, but all they could really see was Keith squaring off with Lotor on the sidewalk, gesturing madly and likely yelling louder than the muffled sound suggested.

“So… you know who that guy is by any chance?” Nyma asked, propping her elbow up on the counter as she turned to Lance. 

Lance swallowed hard, thinking, _Yeah, my future murderer_.

“Uh… Keith’s ex from San Francisco. The reason why he moved out here, anyways,” Lance sighed, and stepped over to her with a faint, unconvincing smile. “Just call me Edgar if he comes back in here. I don’t really want to die today.”

“Aye, aye, Edgar,” she said with a grin. “My bets are all on him though.”

“Gee, thanks, it’s not like I’ve been _working out everyday_ or anything,” Lance said, turning away with a wave of his hand. “I have _muscles_! I mean, look at these guns!”

He flashed his biceps to her, and she covered her hand over her mouth, giggling. 

Keith came back a short while later, breathing hard and red in the face from both anger and the summer heat. He stormed up to the counter and grabbed his bubble tea back. He chugged the rest of it and slammed it with a sigh. Lance watched from the side as Keith scowled at the floor before saying, “I… don’t think I can work today.”

“Dude that’s fine, I’ll just reschedule,” Lance said. Keith nodded tersely, barely keeping it together as he chucked his empty cup into the trash and put his hands in his hair. “You wanna go to my place?” Keith nodded again, and looked up at him, eyes abruptly red. 

Lance hurriedly told Nyma to just schedule him for the next available Monday and let Keith know the details. He took Keith’s tote and led the way out of Nunchi and to the streets. He looked both ways, reassuring himself that Lotor was long gone before slinging his arm around Keith’s shoulders to guide him. 

They walked across the street and waited for a bus that would take them to campus. Keith nudged away from Lance, fists clenched. He crossed his arms stiffly, eyes narrowed. He didn’t look at Lance, even when Lance leaned forward to catch a glimpse of Keith’s disappointment and frustration. 

“It’ll be okay,” Lance promised. “We’ll kick his ass this weekend.”

Keith scoffed and rolled his eyes, nudging the heel of his sandal against the curb. “I don’t know. We have to see who his partner is. The chick from Arizona played for her university’s volleyball league,” he said.

They both halted, and ceased both moving and thinking before kicking into gear. Lance had his phone out in an instant, and Keith did the same, searching for the roster. Keith hadn’t looked at it properly since he nearly took their names off of it—Lotor could have joined after that at some point and Keith never would have known. Lance pulled it up on his browser and held it out to Keith. They scoured it together before zooming in on the branch with Lotor’s name on it.

“A-Au-Aux Chord?” Lance said, and earned a punch in the gut for it.

“It’s _Auxia Cordero_ , you nitwit,” Keith hissed, shoving the phone back into his hands. “For fuck’s sake. We’re fucked.”

“She’s the one? You _really_ think that if Lotor wanted to win you back, he’d be in a team with the girl he cheated on you with?” Lance said, surprised by this guy’s audacity.

“You’d be surprised what assholes do,” Keith said.

“Yeah, they shit and take dicks but _also_ … I just don’t think Lotor came here to win you back if _this_ is his game plan,” Lance said, gesturing to the roster.

“I _know_ , but I don’t know _why_ he’s still obsessing over this. Eight months just for payback. It doesn’t add up,” he said, rubbing a hand anxiously over the vine tattoo climbing up his neck. He shuddered when he sighed. “He just… never seemed like the revenge type. My only guess is that he wants to make me regret it.”

“But… you _aren’t_ regretting it, are you?” Lance asked, confident that Keith would say no. A pained look fell over Keith’s features, tugging his brow tight, and his fingernails digging into the back of his neck. “Keith, come on…”

“I don’t know!” he cried, dropping his hands. They both heard the bus coming, and so he promptly got out his bus pass as he said, shaking his head at the ground. “I don’t know because life was just so much _easier_. It was easy being with Lotor, and I kinda miss the consistency. We had a routine, you know? Like, everything that happened in our relationship was expected. We never moved in together, we kept our lives separate when needed, we ate out every Thursday and played video games on the weekends, and I just… I like new things, but I just wish it could have been on my terms.”

As he spoke, the bus hissed to a stop and opened its doors. They stepped inside and scanned their cards, and Lance followed Keith to the very back of the bus where the sound of the engine made it difficult for people to overhear them from way back there. 

“We used to be spontaneous and exciting but… I thought we grew up,” Keith confessed, voice wavering as he shoved his hands through his hair. “Maybe _I_ was the one who became boring? And he just went along with it?”

“You aren’t boring, Keith,” Lance sighed, rolling his eyes. He claimed the seat that put his back to the windows, Keith beside him where he could see Lance roll his eyes without having to turn. 

“But you only know me _outside_ of a five year relationship,” Keith said.

“You’re not gonna _change_ just because you’re not in a relationship anymore. Yeah, your routine’s changed and you live in San Diego now, but you’re still the same person and I say you’re not boring,” he insisted. He offered Keith a light, reassuring pat on the knee. 

Keith looked down at his hand resting there a moment longer than necessary. He reached for it, and held it, soothing his fingers between Lance’s knuckles. 

“And honestly?” Lance started again, crossing his ankle over his knee as he leant back, confident. “I don’t give a flying fuck what Lotor wants. He’ll be gone before you know it. He’s just acting like a child.”

Keith scoffed, and when Lance turned, he found Keith smiling. “Yeah, a child who could vault you into the sun if he found out your name isn’t Edgar,” he said. 

Lance snorted in surprise, and turned away laughing. “Honestly, kind of terrified about that threat. Do you think I could hire Shiro as a bodyguard?”

“Doubt it,” Keith said, grinning as he leaned forward. He pressed his elbows to his knees, and lifted Lance’s hand up, clasped between both of his own. It brought his face closer to Lance’s, and his hesitant, but hopeful smile into Lance’s view. “Do you think I’d make a good bodyguard?”

“I’d say you’d make one dedicated one, considering we sleep in the same bed all the time,” Lance said, laughing. Keith laughed under his breath, looking down to shake his head of black hair. His bangs fell out of his ponytail long before, and were now framing Keith’s tired eyes. 

“Sorry we couldn’t start your session today,” he sighed, tipping his head forward to press it to his hands, Lance’s fingers still encased between them.

“It’s fine. Who knows? Maybe after the tournament we’ll crash and burn so badly you won’t ever want to talk to me again,” Lance said, and Keith immediately looked up to scowl at him.

“Not funny.”

“I’m _kidding_ , geez.”

“Still doesn’t make it funny. I don’t care about winning or losing much anymore,” he confessed, and Lance raised an eyebrow at him.

“Oh yeah? What happened to kicking Shiro and Allura’s asses.”

Keith shrugged.

“Other things got in the way of it,” he said, and held Lance’s stare for as long as Lance could bear. Lance turned away, cheeks pink, and wondered if Keith’s lack of competitiveness now was the result of whatever started happening between them the past few weeks.

When they got off the bus, Lance led the way to the apartment and continued to hold Keith’s hand on the journey. Keith took his tote back after a while, and breathed a little easier now that he was far from his confrontation with Lotor. They cut through the foot court atrium on the way to the apartment, and breathed in the scent of soft pretzels and bacon. 

They were just one day closer to the weekend, and Lance could feel the anticipation gnawing at his nerves. He could cope, yes, but he never had to cope with playing to Keith’s standards until now. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin the tournament for them. He had hoped that his anxiety over the tournament would fade, but running into Lotor tripled it. The threat cut every last thread of his reassurances, and Keith’s indifference about winning was the only bandaid holding them together. If they didn’t win, big whoop, but if they lost against Lotor…

Lance wasn’t sure how that would effect Keith. If they lost a bracket, he hoped it was before or after going against Lotor. Just not during.

 

* * *

 

Keith broke out of Lance’s koala arms early the next morning and readied for a run. He rustled through his tote for his armband and strapped his phone to it in the partial darkness of Lance’s room. It felt comforting to be here, and to be trusted with Lance’s keys as he left the apartment and locked it securely behind him. He looked at the keys with a smile before stuffing them into his arm band pocket.

It was cooler in the mornings, which made runs less miserable when Keith was awake enough for them. When Keith got to the first floor of the apartment building, Keith paused in the foyer and turned around. He hadn’t explored Lance’s building yet, and with his clock ticking closer to seven, he decided he had a few minutes to spare on this excursion. 

Keith wandered to the front windows of the complex and picked around the couches arranged there. There were a few fake plants here and there, and a Kuerig in one corner fit with sugar and creamer. Keith dug through the cabinets of miscellaneous things until he found some Kuerig cups and mugs. He really had no intention of drinking whatever he happened to make here, and popped the cup into the machine. He nestled the mug underneath the spout.

As the coffee poured, Keith left to explore the closed office area, and a recreational room beyond it. He pictured Lance and Hunk out by the pool table and wondered if they already had their fair share of rounds in that room. Lance seemed like the type to insist on using _all_ of the apartment’s amenities, the pool table included. 

He heard the machine click off in the foyer, and so he popped his earbuds in and grabbed the mug on his way to the basement of the building. There was a theatre of sorts, all dark and purple lights that made it look more like a club than an in-house theatre. Keith stepped around the room and down towards the main screen. He sipped on his coffee as he sat in one of the cushioned armchairs and killed a few minutes in the deep silence.

He went up to the top floor of the building after that.

The top floor was partially taken over by a hang out area surrounded by glass windows overlooking the somewhat shitty view of campus. It was all just building rooftops, all facing away from the actual city skyline behind them. 

He finished his coffee on the stairs leading him back to the first floor. He ditched the mug on the counter before stepping up to the door and putting his back to it as he scrolled through his playlist. As he pushed through the door, his heart hummed in the prospect of a long-awaited run. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking of Lotor on any of his usual routines—lazy in bed with Lance, eating breakfast with Lance and Hunk, on the bus to work—so disrupting it managed to dampen the memory of Lotor confronting him outside of Nunchi. 

His shoes beat against the concrete as he took off around the corner of Lance’s apartment complex. It didn’t take long for him to set a rhythm, and it followed him through the course of his run. He paced his speed to last the next half hour running away from his problems and Lance’s bed. Once the time hit half past seven, he slowed at the entrance of a small park and stretched in the grass. People were up and about heading to work, and Keith watched other runners pass by. One of them waved to him, but he just stared after them, both hands clasped around the underside of his shoes.

As soon as he stopped moving to stretch, though, his mind was back to where it was before. He couldn’t chase away how it felt knowing Lotor was in San Diego for the tournament. He almost wished they had left on good terms so that it wouldn’t seem out of place for Keith to ask him out for a cup of coffee to catch up. So much could happen in one semester. He wanted to know how everyone else was doing at his old university. When he broke up with Lotor, he broke up with all of their mutual friends from classes.

_Stop that,_ he chastised himself. _This is why you chose to stick around Lance’s place last night._

Keith convinced himself that he had the self control of a dog in the face of a Thanksgiving turkey. If he’d been left to his own devices, stuck back at home with Shiro… It terrified him to think of how easy it would be to remember Lotor’s number and unblock him just so they could talk more. Outside of Nunchi, he’d been careless and instinctive—he didn’t think anything he said through due to the surprise of finding Lotor there. Staying with Lance prevented him from coming to irrational conclusions. He didn’t want to break and he _wouldn’t_.

Breaking meant starting over again.

 

* * *

 

Lance tipped his head to the side as he surveyed the progress on the beach. In the shelter of the ice cream stand he once bought a Spongebob popsicle for a little girl, he bit into his waffle cone and furrowed his brow. The volleyball courts were on the far side of the beach, but the walk to the ice cream stand was pleasant and likely to show wear over the weekend with how many spectators were going to mingle around for the tournament. The hosts of the tournament had a truck backed into the sand, depositing an extra set of bleachers to the far courts. 

Hunk slurped on his popsicle beside Lance. He licked his thumb before saying, “So how does it feel knowing your death is just around the corner?”

Lance crunched so hard on his ice cream cone he almost split his lip. 

“I’m not dying this weekend. I still have to graduate,” he insisted, sticking his nose in the air. 

“But, like… Keith said Lotor’s muscles were the size of your stupidity,” Hunk said.

“Since _when?_ ”

“When you took a shower this morning. We had a chat,” he said, and smiled brilliantly out to the ocean as Lance glowered at him. 

He finished off his cone and the delicious fudge center at the bottom of it. He brushed his hands off on his swim trunks as he said, “You two are just the masters of backstabbery, I hope you realize.”

“Oh, come on! It was funny! At least, _I_ thought it was funny,” Hunk said, and snorted so hard he choked on his ice cream. “Ow,” he moaned, clutching at his chest. Lance started to walk away. “Aw, buddy, come back!”

Lance started for the volleyball courts, and as he did, he stepped off the dusty concrete surrounding the ice cream stand. There was a patio beside it sheltered with a wooden structure covered in dried palm leaves. As he looked around the corner of the building, he chalked off the familiar white hair across the way as a daydream nightmare only to skid to a halt not far off the concrete when someone called out, “Edgar! Hold up for a second.”

Lance closed his eyes and cursed the day he emerged from his mother’s birth canal.

He bowed his head, said his prayers, and turned around with a smile. Might as well face death with a good attitude. “Hey there stranger! Don’t think we were properly introduced.” _Who the fuck are you, a southern grandma?_

Lotor jogged up, dodging picnic tables full of unsuspecting witnesses. Lance stuttered uselessly as he took in the sight of a very… _very_ large woman behind Lotor. Her biceps made it impossible for her arms to lie flat at her sides, and her thick, black dreads were braided back into a ponytail. There were white tattoos down her arms like arrows pointing down to her weapons—the fist she punched into her opposite hand. Lance gulped, eyes flickering back to Lotor as he took a step back. 

“Whoa, hey, I don’t know you, but—” Lance started, and shrieked like a little girl when Lotor clapped his hand onto Lance’s shoulder.

“You seem like a good guy,” he said, looking away to squint at the sun as he flicked his sunglasses up. He turned his sharp brown eyes back to Lance, his grin downright murderous. “Keith has a thing for good guys, you see. I’m wondering if you know anything about that, you know, being close to Keith and all.”

“I-I’m honestly just—” Lance started, momentarily sparing a moment of his brief existence to look at the other girl on Lotor’s right shoulder. She was shorter, around Lance’s height, and he barely got a chance to register her short, purple hair before he heard Hunk calling his name from the ice cream stand.

“Lance, buddy, what’s going on over there!” he shouted, and waved happily to Lotor and his thugs when Lotor turned to see who Hunk was yelling at. Lance cursed under his breath, and took the short second to escape.

He shoved Lotor’s hand off of him and ducked to avoid colliding with the buff woman’s arm. He skidded in the sand, pivoting, and bolted for the road. 

“Shitshitshit!” Lance shrieked, his heart lunging up his throat as he sprinted towards a woman pushing a stroller towards the beach. His track history came in clutch, though, because he vaulted over it like he was jumping hurtles—like leg stretched far in front, the other bent to the side. The mother cried out, and cursed at him for being so reckless, but he didn’t care. 

Lotor shoved past the crowd of people on the beach, ignoring their shouts of protest as his eyes stayed focused on the lanky scumbag bolting down the sidewalk on his bare feet. The stroller slowed down Lotor and his thugs just long enough for Lance to dissolve among the beach crowd, and catch Hunk on his way back to the ice cream stand.

He skidded up to the concrete, the bottoms of his feet _on fire_. He grabbed Hunk by the arm and jolted him around the pavilion. They yanked open the women’s bathroom and shut themselves inside, ignoring the startled looks of the unsuspecting witnesses.

Lance clutched at his chest, heart pounding. He locked the door and waited, listening for frantic footsteps to approaching the concrete. He slapped his hand over Hunk’s mouth as the men’s bathroom was flung open. He pleaded and prayed to the Lord Almighty that the witnesses wouldn’t give them up, and thankfully, a moment later, Lotor cursed and stormed off back to his thugs. 

Stuck in the bathroom, the two of them released a collective sigh of relief, holding onto one another for support. Hunk’s popsicle was long gone—likely sticking to the bottom of someone’s shoe by now—and Hunk looked at his hand and mourned the loss. Lance collapsed back against the door, still clutching his chest. 

“What was that about death being right around the corner?” Lance said, expression flat as Hunk burst into giggles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao I forgot to post yesterday XD I had classes until 9PM and was thoroughly dead when I got back.


	14. kinky beach smack-talk

Friday was exhausting simply because Lance spent the entire day fretting over Saturday. It made him impossible to work with at the bar, but they survived if only by the skin of their teeth. Shiro walked him out the back door that night with a weathering sigh, and Lance winced. He was fidgety the entire night for more than one valid reason. The thought of Lotor knowing where he worked sent spikes through every one of his vertebrae.

“Are you _actually_ worried about Lotor finding you, or can you walk home by yourself?” Shiro asked dully, unamused by the way Lance dragged his hands down the sides of his face like he was going mad. “Fine, I’ll walk you home.”

“Thank you!” Lance squeaked, and promptly held onto the back of Shiro’s shirt as they crossed the street together. 

Shiro fiddled on his phone for the majority of the walk, and when Lance managed to sneak a peek of it, he saw Allura’s name on the top. His phone said that it was nearly one in the morning, which Lance knew they’d both regret by the time seven o’ clock rolled around. The tournament started at nine, which meant they all had to be in and signed in by eight at the latest. On top of that, Lance had to worry about his family coming to spectate later in the morning. That just added another layer of complexity to his already-frayed nerves. 

Lance slowed at his apartment door. The light in the foyer was on, but he could see that the office was long since closed for the night. Shiro hesitated at the walkway, lowering his phone to look between Lance and the blinking light on the sensor waiting for Lance to swipe his card. 

“This is it?” he asked, gesturing vaguely to it.

“Yeah. Thanks for… walking me,” Lance said, the awkwardness warranting a wince from him, and a blank stare from Shiro.

“I don’t mind. Don’t hesitate to ask if you ever feel unsafe waking home,” Shiro said, and when Lance said nothing, Shiro pointed his phone sharply at Lance, eyebrows raised. “I’m serious.”

“Fine. Okay,” Lance agreed, slapping his hands down. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Shiro walked off then and turned back around to wave. Lance returned it as he scanned in and stepped through the front door. Inside it was quiet, and the silence followed him up the stairs to his floor. His footsteps passed almost soundlessly on the carpet were it not for the rustle of his jeans as he pried out his key and pressed it to the sensor pad above the door handle. It clicked free and let him push the door open with his hip. 

He kicked his shoes off at the door and picked them up. The living room and kitchen were all silent, and as he peered in through the archway, the blinds were closed—they likely had a movie night while Lance was working. He hesitated at the sight of blankets strewn across the couch, and the empty popcorn bowl as evidence. He smiled faintly as he turned back to his hallway. 

He tried as best as he could to be quiet as he nudged inside, and slipped over to the bathroom. He set his shoes near his desk and went to clean up after a long night at work. Knowing he wouldn’t have time to shower in the morning, he started with that before brushing his teeth and folding up his work clothes. The bedroom was still dark when he emerged, but he could still see the lump in his comforter where Keith was burrowed under. 

He padded into the room in nothing but his boxers, too lazy to put on anything else. He stuffed his work clothes into the hamper and stole his phone from his pant pocket on the way. Keith grumbled under the blankets when Lance nestled in.

Keith emerged, sniffing as he squinted over at Lance. 

“Hey, go back to sleep,” Lance whispered, nudging him so that he’d burrow back under, but Keith sniffed again, and it took a second for Lance to realize that tissues were an issue.

He turned back around, leaning over the edge of the bed to grab the depleted tissue box. He plucked out the last handful and passed one to Keith. Keith sat up, the light from the street now catching on his swollen, tired eyes. Lance watched him suck in a hollow, rattling breath before blowing his nose. He passed Keith another tissue before passing him the water bottle Keith kept on the edge. 

“M’sorry,” Keith murmured, rubbing his hands uselessly over his cheeks. It just rubbed around the tears. 

“It’s fine,” Lance said as softly as he could manage when he wished he wasn’t so terrified of Lotor so he could pound the guy’s face in.

Keith inhaled sharply, exhaled, and repeated the process until he calmed enough to speak properly. His words wobbled, and were as uneven as the way his eyes flickered everywhere but Lance. “I just—haven’t been able to stop _crying—_ ”

“Hey, hey, don’t try to hold it in. That just makes it worse,” Lance said, rubbing his hand over Keith’s arm. 

“I—I don’t want t-to wake H-Hunk and Shay up,” he said, hiccuping.

“They can’t hear a thing from across the apartment. They both sleep like the dead anyways,” Lance said, and pulled Keith closer so that he could cry into his shoulder until the clock neared two in the morning. Logically, Lance knew they both should have conked out the second Lance stepped into the room, but he knew from experience that it was impossible to sleep when his brain wouldn’t shut off, and his body insisted he cry on it. 

No one was a pretty crier, and Keith was no exception, but he muffled it in Lance’s shirt until it passed, and he was just a quivering, weeping mess. His breath came back ten minutes later, and he let Lance pull him off the bed to drink what was left of his water bottle, and grab a spare change of clothes.

Lance pushed them into Keith’s arms. “Take a shower. Even if it’s just two minutes it’ll help,” Lance promised, and Keith nodded. The skin beneath his eyes was puffy and red, but he managed a soft smile anyways.

“Thanks,” he whispered, and headed for the bathroom.

Lance stared at the closed door for a while after, studying the shadow of Keith moving around behind it. After wasting enough time on his feet, he lowered himself down to the bed, and nestled over to Keith’s spot. He ignored the patch of moisture where Keith’s tears soaked into the pillow, and settled in for the night. Keith would come back, refreshed and exhausted, and they’d both pass out with just enough time to spare them five hours of sleep.

It would have to do.

 

* * *

 

On the walk to the bus, they passed the dim windows in the food court next to Lance’s apartment complex. The air was crisp and cool from the morning breeze rolling in from Pacific, but it wouldn’t last and they both knew it. Lance crossed his arms against the temporary cold, and settled with standing next to Keith at a familiar bus stop on the edge of campus. It was on a busy street swarmed with student apartments, which meant restaurants from all cultures were condensed to this area. They stood in front of an Italian pizzeria, and across from an authentic Asian food restaurant.

Lance squinted at the sign across the street as Keith looked down at his phone to check the time. 

“We should make it before the sign-ins start,” Keith said, and glanced down the street. “That is, if the bus gets here on time.”

Lance pointed across the way, over Keith’s vision. Keith followed Lance’s gaze to the restaurant. “What? It’s a hotpot place.”

“A _what?_ Like, potpie?” Lance asked, and Keith rolled his eyes.

“No, like, _hotpot_. You sit at a table with heat pads and you get a pot of broth and whatever you want in it,” Keith explained. “They have _tons_ of places in San Francisco. You can’t go to San Fran without getting hotpot at least _once_.”

“Is it, like… seafood?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Well, what’s in it?”

“Dude, whatever you want,” Keith said, adjusting the strap on his duffle. He settled with crossing his arms. The two of them studied the closed hotpot diner a while longer—Lance, wondering what was _in it_ , and Keith, now craving hotpot. “We should get some after the tournament,” he decided aloud.

Lance shimmied his shoulders a bit and raised an eyebrow at Keith, who squinted right back at him. “ _Oh_ , oh, you mean—okay, yeah, sure we can get hotpot afterwards,” Lance said.

“What did you think I meant?” Keith said. The way he turned to completely face Lance made Lance fear for his life if he said the wrong thing. Keith may have been a relatively tall guy, but he was _built_. Lean, sure, but the tattoos made him look all the more intimidating. 

“I… dunno. Nothing, I guess,” Lance hummed innocently. “So, like, hotpot date?”

Keith opened his mouth and thought better of whatever was on the tip of his tongue. He shut his mouth and looked away, towards the diner, and away from Lance’s eager smile. 

Keith turned away, facing the street once more. “Yeah, sure. Hotpot date.”

He glanced out of the corner of his eye, and caught sight of Lance punching a fist into the air. Keith rolled his eyes and decided that he could entertain this—for both Lance and himself.

The bus rolled around the corner, and soon they were climbing onboard and leaving their Future Date Spot behind. Lance smiled from that block to the next, and all the way to the beach bus stop. 

The walk from the bus to the beach was breath of relief that didn’t sink in until they were already on the sand. Lance’s blood pressure skyrocketed then as he took in the teams that were in the tournament and still filing in. Keith grabbed him by the front of the shirt and thrust him into motion, arms pinwheeling as Lance kept himself from face planting into the sand. Keith moved onwards, oblivious, with his duffle tossed nonchalantly over one shoulder.

“Quit wasting time. We gotta get to check in,” Keith said, and started down the sand dune with Lance reluctantly on his heels. 

His chest only ached the further they proceeded through the sand. He thought he would anticipate the rush of the game, but he knew as soon as he fell into the pit of desperate exhilaration, it would be over, and he wouldn’t have anything to look forward to after that. His summer was filled with this as his expectation—the signal to the end of his summer, and the end to his excitement before classes started up again. If he could, he wanted this day to last forever, but that just wasn’t how the game worked.

Keith guided them through the throngs of volleyball players to the booth where a woman took their names and slid over packets for the both of them. Lance recalled what the contents were based on his experience last summer with Allura. They ducked into the pavilion shade, and as Lance pinned his number patch to his swim trunks, Keith shook out a bottle of sunscreen.

Lance ducked down beside Keith, ripping open Keith’s packet so he could pin the number to Keith’s swim trunks. Keith squinted down at him, and didn’t bother with questions as Lance clipped it there and stood up.

Lotor stood directly behind Keith.

“I was wondering when you two would show up,” he said in a provoking hum that had Lance’s hackles raising. Keith closed his eyes, likely counting to ten so he wouldn’t punch the nearest thing (likely Lance on the backswing to nailing Lotor in the jaw). 

Keith turned, arms now crossed. There was a streak of sunscreen on his bicep as he faced Lotor’s cutting stare that sliced straight through Lance’s confidence. Lance clutched at his chest and rubbed as if pierced. 

“What, waiting for us or something? Almost sounds like you don’t have a life,” Keith said. 

“We both know that isn’t true,” he said, tilting his head back to Keith. He smiled again. “I was hoping to talk before things got too insane with the matches.”

“I don’t have anything else to say to you,” Keith said, and the way he cleared his throat afterwards reminded Lance of their conversations, and how much Keith _desperately_ wanted to clear up with Lotor now that it was apparent that he couldn’t follow through with cold-turkey. Lotor wedged himself back into Keith’s life without care for the cracks that branched from it.

“Then perhaps you’ll let me talk to Lance,” he asked, and Lance paled as he backed up, and bumped into the person approaching him from behind.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Shiro’s voice sounded from behind him. He clasped a hand onto Lance’s shoulder, steadying him. 

Lotor’s expression soured. His lips twisted into a frown, and Lance was so sure he’d get a fist to the jaw in one nanosecond. He braced for it, only to be interrupted by that same purple-haired woman that was with Lotor the other day on the beach.

“Hey Keith,” she said, voice distant, as if she wasn’t committed enough to existence to put in the effort. “How’s life?”

“Fine,” he bit out. “At least it was before you two showed up.”

“Ooh, ouch,” Lotor said, laughing. He put a hand to his heart, and tapped his fingers over it. “Careful before you break it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I meant to _shatter it_ back in January. Guess the effort wasn’t enough to break through your impossible attitude.”

“Oh my God,” Lance heard Allura whisper behind Shiro, stifling a laugh.

Lotor’s jaw slacked before he set it furiously tight. Based on Keith’s shift of pace, Lance could only assume that this woman was Acxa, and the number patch on the breast of her sports bra proved it. 

She had her attention pinned on Keith, and didn’t hesitate to jab a finger at him and hiss, “I know you think you’re hot shit but I swear to God I’ll tear you apart on the court.”

“I’m sure you’ll try to,” Keith said, and flicked his hand dismissively. “Coming here was a waste of your time. I’m sure you’ve already figured out that a cheater doesn’t stop even if he’s dating the cunt who he cheated with. If you haven’t, I’d take a closer look.”

Lance clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from shouting. He just witnessed a murder, and it didn’t process on Acxa’s face until Keith had grabbed Lance by the shirt, snatched his duffle, and shouldered past his brother and Allura. Acxa clenched her fists at her side, fuming.

Lance stumbled after Keith and hurried to keep pace. Allura and Shiro followed after them, looking over their shoulders to ensure that they left Lotor and Acxa far behind them. When they reached the bleachers, Allura tugged Lance by the arm and guided them to where their group was setting up camp. She checked Lance’s packet for his court number and match time. 

“Well, that was eventful,” Shiro said, clapping his hands together as they came to a stop at the seats. Keith dropped down and yanked his shoes off his feet, scowling at everyone and everything. “You good?”

“I’m fine,” Keith spat, chucking his sandy shoes into his duffle.

“Right,” he said, and turned an uncertain glance onto Allura. She shrugged. “Well, we’ve got forty-five minutes until go-time.”

“Means I got forty-five minutes to shove my foot up Lotor’s ass to kick his ego,” Keith said, and Allura put her face in her hands.

“Okay, let’s not start any fights before we actually make it onto the court,” Lance suggested, eyes wide. 

“No. I’m pissed, I got under six hours of sleep, and that bastard needs to pay,” he hissed, jabbing a finger at Lance. “Try and stop me.”

Lance put his hands up in surrender, and really didn’t expect Keith to stand up. Shiro intercepted him. “Whoa, hey, slow down for a second and breathe,” he said, but Keith’s fists were already clenched and ready to fight. Shiro clapped his hands down onto Keith’s shoulders and held him still. “If you punch first, Lotor _will_ punch back. Do you really want to be disqualified _and_ have a black eye?”

Keith sucked in a breath and held it, glaring off to the side. He caught Lance’s eye for a split second, and the breath left Keith’s lungs. 

“Fine. No fights,” Keith concluded, crossing his arms. Giving in just seemed to make him tense further. “I’ll back off.”

“Good,” Shiro sighed, and stepped away. 

The instant he did, Keith lowered his arms and said, “Right after I give him a piece of my fucking mind—”

He tried to bolt, but Shiro seemed to expect it. He lunged for Keith, grabbing him around to the torso, and heaved him off the ground. Keith snarled curses and battered his fists on Shiro’s back until he was shoved back onto the bleachers for a timeout. Shiro jabbed a finger at Lance.

“Watch him,” he said. “Don’t let him leave this spot for the next fifteen minutes.”

“Got it, chief,” Lance said, saluting him. He stepped over to Keith and sat himself on Keith’s lap.

“Whoa, man, personal space,” Keith said, but Lance made himself comfortable.

“Can’t move if I’m sitting on you,” Lance said, looking proud of himself as he beamed at Allura. She shook her head at him and rolled her eyes over to Shiro.

“I’m going to find Pidge and Hunk. I thought I saw them when all that shit was going down,” she told him. She pointed to Lance, who perked up despite how Keith tried viciously to shove him off his lap. Lance linked his arms around Keith’s neck to stay put. “Make sure he doesn’t break free and wreck havoc.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Lance said, and smiled as he watched her walk off down the beach in search of the two hooligans. 

Keith flailed his legs and, in doing so, slipped backwards on the bleachers. He cursed, grabbing hold of the seat behind him as he slipped into the crevice with Lance on his stomach. Lance held onto his seat (Keith’s ass). When they stopped moving, Keith was nearly folded in two by the bleachers with Lance’s boney ass wedged between his thighs and abdomen. Shiro watched the entire scene unfold from where he stood, arms crossed, guarding his and Allura’s things. 

“Get off of me in five seconds or there _will_ be consequences,” Keith said.

“Yeah right—”

“Five.”

“What’re you gonna do—”

“Four.”

Lance looked at Shiro and pointed at Keith. “Do you think he’s being serious?” he said while in the background Keith counted to three.

Shiro shrugged.

“One.”

“Whoa, no, you skipped tw—OOH!”

Lance collapsed into a fit of giggles and painful laughter as Keith tackled him with the sort of savagery that came with every tickler who had no regard for the wellbeing of their victim. Lance laughed until he cried, trying to pry Keith’s fingers off his stomach to no avail. Floundering on the bench, Lance rolled off onto the sand, the air knocked out of him. He barely got it back before Keith fell on top of him, elbowing him in the chest, and commenced assaulting Lance’s armpits.

“S-Stop! Stop that! I haven’t shaved!” Lance cried, cheeks aching from smiling so much. 

At last, Keith stopped, and Lance bolted to his feet and clutched at his stomach as he stared down at Keith and then at Shiro. Keith leant back against the bleachers, hardly out of breath in comparison to Lance. He slung an arm back against the bench and tipped his head innocently at Lance.

“ _Animal_ ,” Lance accused.

Keith shrugged before pointing behind Lance. He turned and gasped in excitement—Pidge was heading this way, with Hunk not far behind. They had their ginger curls flattened back in a thick, camouflage headband to match their camouflage cutoff shirt. Pidge beamed at the sight of them, and reached for Lance’s hand as they walked up and bumped shoulders with him.

“Hey! You made it! We were looking for you guys,” they said, and gestured between Lance and Keith. “Also, it looks like you two just finished with a quickie.”

“I’m _out of breath_ because Keith just _assaulted me_ with _tickles_ ,” Lance huffed, furious.

Pidge winked at him. “Where?”

Lance shoved them in the face, ignoring all their laughter in favor of facing Hunk next. Pidge collapsed beside Keith as Lance lunged for Hunk and latched onto him like a koala. Hunk caught him and held on, swinging them back and forth.

“Buddy! How’s it going?!” Hunk said, clapping Lance _hard_ on the back before dropping him to the ground. Lance landed on unsteady feet, grinning madly.

“Good! Yeah, we’re waiting to warm up a bit longer. When’s your first match?”

They compared schedules. The first layer of the bracket would take the majority of the morning since they didn’t have enough court for the number of team pairs listed. Hunk and Pidge were on the opposite side of the bracket from them, which meant they likely wouldn’t be paired up at any point during the day unless they both reached the final slot. The chances of that happening were slim, especially since Lotor and Acxa were at the far bottom of Lance and Keith’s half of the bracket system. Not to mention, Shiro and Allura were likely to go up against Pidge and Hunk near the start—they were just two pairs below them.

When nine o’ clock rolled around, Lance was one second closer to losing his mind entirely. His nerves were shot, and Keith did little to help. The guy was as stoic as ever and incapable of understanding the voltage anxiety shocked his chest with. Hunk and Pidge ran off to their court, and since Allura and Shiro didn’t need to move an inch, Lance left his things with them and hurried to catch up with Keith. He was already halfway to their designated court—they were all marked with letters attached to the referee stands. 

Keith walked up to the referee with Lance trailing not far behind. When Lance caught up, the referee had their names down and they waited for their opponents to approach. Keith shook hands with each of them, and Lance followed suit despite how clammy his hands were. The morning was starting to swelter with humidity, which didn’t help him one bit, but their opponents didn’t seem to notice, or bother acknowledging Lance’s sweaty skin. 

Lance shook his hands out as he walked away. So much for acting calm, cool, and collected.

“Dude, relax, will you?” Keith said with a scoff.

“Yeah, easy for you to say. You don’t have buckets of anxiety to cope with,” Lance said, pushing his hair back until it stood up on end and made him look all the more frantic. “ _God_ , this happens every match. Allura always knew what to say, though.”

Keith blinked at him, unimpressed, and said, “It’ll be fine.”

Lance threw his hands in the air.

“The Master of Words! He speaks!” he cried out, and fell to his knees. “I’ve been healed! My anxiety vanquished!”

“Fuck off,” Keith laughed, and shoved him so hard he fell back into the sand.

Shortly afterwards, Keith stepped up to the net with a member of the opposing team, and the referee had them flip a coin to call who would serve first. He came back pissed, but it wasn’t much of a change from before. Lance recognized this particular level of angst from their suicide drills in practice, and how Keith became relentless on the court against Lance. He was just thankful to have that anger on his side today. Being on the other side of the net made Keith’s attacks infinitely worse to experience.

They hadn’t won the coin toss so the ball was handed over to the opposing team. Lance squared up in the back of the court with Keith to his right, further up by a step or two. For the moment, Lance’s heart calmed, and he became impatient the longer he waited for the serve to come to him.

The server pitched the ball into the air with a running start to the end line. They flew over it, arm swinging high.

The blast of the first serve sent Lance’s feet in motion. He lunged for the ball, and swung it up with a well-aimed catch to his right wrist. Keith ducked beneath it, shouting for Lance’s attention as he skidded to his feet and raced for the net.

Lance’s spike signaled their first of many points that tallied up to 21. The first win went by in a blur, and it wasn’t until it ended that Lance realized just how great they were. His confidence outlasted Keith’s indifferent shrug when Lance tackled him with a celebratory hug. He hefted Keith up in his arms, swinging them around. 

Keith flopped uselessly in his arms before saying, “We still have, like, a half a dozen teams to go against.”

“I don’t care!” Lance cried, setting him down so that they could shake hands with the team over the center line.

Keith rolled his eyes and trailed after Lance, ignoring the tug at his heart that told him to lighten up for Lance’s sake. Seeing Lance hyped like this was enough, though, and so he indulged the way Lance grabbed for him the instant they were off the court. He leapt up onto Keith’s back, hooking his gangly legs around Keith’s waist, and stuck there even when Keith flailed around and nearly fell backwards into the sand. His arms pinwheeled to keep him upright, and he grudgingly carried Lance back to Allura and Shiro’s court.

Their match was done as well, and so they were watching the first set of the next match. Keith carried Lance to the bleachers, keeping his eye on the court so that they wouldn’t be pummeled by an oncoming volleyball. He lowered Lance onto the bench and settled for the spot beside him. Allura was instantly on top of Lance asking how his match went, and Lance was all talk about it. 

Shiro stood up to refill his water bottle. Allura jumped to hand hers over, and as Shiro turned to walk off, she smacked his ass and said, “Thanks, hun!”

Keith put his head in one of his hands, and refused to look at her even when Lance cackled from beside him. Shiro didn’t bother looking back, and Keith figured it was because he was too used to Allura’s manhandling tactics.

The winning team on the court was rising up fast to twenty points, but there came a swift comeback that brought the underdogs up to 22 to settle the score conflict. The second set started when Pidge and Hunk arrived, glowing from their latest victory. They high fived before splitting up so that Hunk could sit behind Lance and absorb all of Lance’s enthusiasm in ways Keith couldn’t. 

After each court wrapped up a match, volunteers went through and combed the sand back into place, expelling indentations where players skidded and dug their heels into the ground. Just to work off some excess energy, Lance helped out on their next court, and Keith quietly scorned him from the sidelines. Like before, Keith met with the referee, and he flipped the coin to see who would serve first. They won that round, and the ball was passed to their side of the court. 

Unable to spike the ball at the ground, Keith spun it between his hands with fierce intentions. Lance couldn’t even imagine the amount of friction Keith created with just that, and his heated hands stilled the ball when the whistle blew. 

Keith eyed his opponents, the court beyond the net, and backed away from the end line. He spun the ball once more before tossing it, knees bent, and ran forward to meet it with his feet high over the end line. When his hand made contact, the pop resounded around the court and was swiftly met with the sound the ball made when it hit the opposite side of the court, and spun through the sand. 

Lance leapt in the air with a shout of victory. Keith stuck to the back, but let Lance high-five him with a small smile. 

“Des _troy_ them,” Lance said, and Keith laughed.

“That’s the plan.”

The ball returned to him. He kicked it up and caught it before moving back past the end line. Their opponents knew who they were facing now, and managed to scavenge the ball mere inches from the sand. The girl rolled to her feet to follow through with the spike that Keith saved and bumped to Lance. 

_Time to teach them a lesson_ , he thought as he braced himself under the ball and hoisted it high into the air, to the net where Keith soared like the twin tattoos on his shoulder blades were wings.

Lance was dancing before the ball even hit the court. He leapt over to Keith and tackled him with a cry of excitement until Keith shoved him off and reminded him that they still had forty more points to score if they planned on winning the entire match. 

They won with time to spare, which brought them to Pidge and Hunk’s court as they prepped for their next match. They were both sitting in the sand, legs stretched out so the bottoms of their feet touched. Lance walked up just as Pidge was pulling Hunk forward, their hands latched onto Hunk’s. 

“We’re waiting for Allura and Shiro to finish up their match,” Pidge explained, peering up at him before Hunk’s countdown ended, and he leaned back, pulling Pidge forward.

“How do you feel about your prospects?” Lance asked.

“Shitty,” they said, voice strained as Hunk pulled them as far as he could.

Lance stomped his foot onto Pidge’s back, and they grunted. “Crush their spirits, heathen,” he ordered, and jabbed a finger at Hunk. “You too.”

Pidge frantically reached behind their back to grab at Lance’s ankle, but they just weren’t flexible enough to manage it. Eventually, they flopped forward over their thighs with an irritated huff. Lance lifted his foot then, mostly because someone grabbed him from behind and elicited a squeak from him as his feet left the ground and his legs swung to the side. The instant he was back on the ground, he spun around, and found Keith glaring at him.

“Stop harassing people who are smaller than you,” Keith said.

“Yeah!” Pidge whined.

“This is the _big leagues_ , alright? No fooling around,” Lance said.

Pidge turned around to raise an eyebrow at him, and Hunk cocked his head. Keith crossed his arms.

“We’re _literally_ just on a beach in San Diego. We signed up for this shit _online_. Literally everyone who signs up and qualifies is in,” Keith said. 

Lance jabbed a finger at him, all haughty-like. “ _Big Leagues_ ,” he stressed, and walked away.

“Keith, keep your partner on a leash,” Pidge said.

“Kinky,” Keith said, and they both stuck their tongues out at one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay between chapters—I haven't had any time or motivation to write lately D: 
> 
> [girlskylark](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/)   
>  [llstarcasterll](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/)


	15. game, set, match

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao the chapter title is a tennis reference but just roll with it

The whistle sounded.

Shiro had the ball at the end line. 

Pidge and Hunk prepped for the worst, but lost five points just trying to save the ball from Shiro’s brutal serves. Even if Shiro and Allura considered this as just another fun game, they pulled no punches and gave it their best like any college volleyball match. It was like their scholarships depended on it. Their ability to pay for school was on the line. It wasn’t just a simple beach volleyball match anymore.

Pidge and Hunk caught on quick, and their synchrony was something Lance hadn’t expected. They crossed the court with speed as Hunk tossed to ball to Pidge as he was on the move. Lance clasped his hands together, too thrilled to speak, and gasped as Pidge leapt into the air like every time before.

Despite being vertically challenged, Pidge was a lot like Keith. They both effortlessly got air under their feet and seemed to soar. They crashed the ball onto Shiro and Allura’s court, narrowly dodging Shiro as he jumped to block it. It skimmed off Shiro’s pinkie and ricochetted. Pidge dropped wincing, but was relieved when it was just within the line. Allura was on the other side of the court and unable to save it. 

Pidge jumped in excitement and slapped Hunk on the back. Hunk winced, scratching at the spot. Shiro kicked the ball over to them, and Pidge popped it up with their foot.

They leaned in to one another, and Pidge walked away with resolve. Hunk turned back to the net, looking more intimidating than any other time Lance saw him attempt such a look. The guy was a marshmallow without a mean bone in his body, but at this moment, he looked about ready to crush someone’s skull in with his bare hands. 

It was… kind of hot, Lance had to admit. He pinched his lower lip, intent on seeing how this all played out. He was starting to hope Shay made it here sooner rather than later to see her man turn into an absolute _beast_.

“Why are you looking at him like that?” Keith asked, looking from Lance to Hunk.

“Nothing,” Lance said, innocent as ever. He gave a careless shrug, but Keith wasn’t buying it. He continued to glower skeptically at Hunk as Pidge passed an easy serve to Shiro and Allura.

It went straight for Allura, who bumped it to Shiro and prepared to spike. Hunk and Pidge backed up, shuffling their feet in the sand as one. When the ball rocketed towards them, Pidge lunged for it with a shout, rolling and speeding backwards, away from the net. 

Hunk got under the ball just in time for Pidge to swing back and start sprinting to the net. Hunk set the ball impossibly high before—

—falling to the ground.

Instantly those on the bleachers gasped, and sat on the edge of their seats as they all realized Hunk was on all fours, and Pidge was lunging up, over Hunk, and using his back as a vault. Hunk pushed up, heaving Pidge higher than ever.

Lance cursed out loud, and screamed when Pidge made the spike, an entire foot above where Shiro’s hands reached. He lunged to his feet, and Keith had a hand over his mouth to keep from looking and acting as excited as he felt.

When they scored the point, the referee hesitated, eyeing Pidge and Hunk as they high-fived. Lance wasn’t entirely sure any of that was legal, but thankfully, the referee let it slide.

Being able to spike over Shiro and Allura’s jump heights made the game slightly more fair, and succeeded in drawing the game out into epic proportions. They were an even match that Lance hardly expected to witness, and soon, the bleacher stands were full as teams awaited their next set of opponents. The score ticked close to twenty on both sides before tipping to twenty-one, and another two points over before Shiro crushed them with his serves, bringing their score up with a two point advantage.

The entire crowd in the bleachers jumped up and applauded the game as Pidge, Hunk, Shiro, and Allura stepped up to the center line to shake each others’ hands. Pidge was smiling like the maniac they were, and it really should have been unnerving to witness. Instead, Allura hugged them, and laughed as Pidge groaned and went limp in her arms. Allura squeezed them before letting go and hugging Hunk next. Hunk glowed, and preened when Shiro pat him on the head.

Lance tackled him next like a monkey—all arms and legs and off the ground. They patted each other on the backs like mad, making weird gross noises like, “OH-HO-HO- _HO!_ ” and “AH-HA-HA- _HA!_ ” Amidst their slap-fest, Keith stared at Shiro like he was on _The Office_.

“Looks like we’re one step closer to crushing you guys in the final round,” Allura said, winking at Keith. “Think you can make it?”

“We’ll beat your asses into the sand. Count on it,” he said, crossing his arms. He grinned, and ignored the way Shiro frowned disapprovingly at him. “We came here to win.”

His eyes caught on the group rounding the bleachers, and were he a cat, his ears would have flattened, and his hackles raised. But alas, Keith was human, and fiercely livid. Shiro turned at the change of Keith’s expression, and grimaced at the sight of Lotor’s eyes on them.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about the winning part,” Lotor commented, startling Lance into clinging to Hunk tighter, eyes wide. Lotor smirked as he tipped his head to the side, and surveyed his meager competition.

“This is between Shiro and I—not you. I don’t care what happens in our match,” Keith said, gesturing between the two of them. He squared his feet, gearing up to fight, but Shiro was there to stop Lotor from taking a step closer.

“That’s if you make it to our match,” Lotor said.

“You’re riding on Acxa’s coattails.”

“Aw, don’t be mean. You said I had talent if I actually put some effort in,” he cooed, his condescending smile almost too much for Keith to stand through. Keith clenched his fists, jaw aching from how tightly he clenched his teeth together. Lotor leaned over, ignoring how tense Shiro was. “I’ll be sure to put some effort in. For you, babe.”

“You bloody fucking _asshole_ —!” Keith snarled, lunging at him with claws out. Shiro caught him and dragged him back, ignoring how he writhed and clawed at Shiro’s arms to get to where Lotor was walking away and waving to Lance.

“We aren’t done here,” he said, and Lance swallowed hard, legs still clasped around Hunk’s waist. He caught sight of their demise, Acxa, with her arms crossed, and eyes flitting between the group of them. She caught Lance’s stare and flinched, hurriedly chasing after Lotor’s tracks in the sand.

Shiro loosened up, and Keith shook out of his grasp, straightening his shirt, and looking thoroughly frazzled. He pounded his fist into his hand and started off in the direction of where Lotor retreated, but Shiro simply caught him by the back of the shirt, and dragged him over to the bleachers. 

He sat Keith down firmly, and clapped his hands onto Keith’s shoulders. “The last thing I need is for you to fight him and come back with a concussion. Alright?”

Keith pursed his lips, and glared at the sand. 

“Alright?”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Keith huffed.

At that moment, Lance’s phone went off, and so he reluctantly let Hunk set him on his feet so he could answer it. He shuffled through his duffle bag to find it on the last ring, and answer it with a cheery, “Hey! _¿Ya han llegado, chicos?_ ”

The line on the other end crackled, shuffling against something to muffle the sound of people talking. It sounded like… _far_ more than just the immediate family. Lance paled when he realized he was correct, and that he could spot his family from across the beach already. _Jesus fuck_ , he thought.

“ _Lance! Where are you? What court number?_ ” his aunt asked through the phone. If she was there, then that meant all of her children were, too. 

“We’ll be on court two in ten minutes,” Lance said, hoping that it wasn’t possible to see his grimace from across the beach. He pushed a hand over his cheek and sighed. He said as cheerily as possible, “I’ll see you guys there!” before hanging up.

Lance moved his hand to his forehead, holding back the headache threatening to take over. 

“What is it?” Pidge asked. “It looks like a ghost just passed through you and shat in your stomach.”

“Pidge, oh my God,” Hunk said, embarrassed.

Lance pointed off into the distance, to where the crowd of his family members were migrating past the ice cream pavilion. Keith crossed his legs, bouncing one leg irritably as he looked between Lance and the party of ten heading this way. Lance caught sight of him sitting there, and his instincts shrieked, _Hide the boyfriend before your Ma can get her hands on him!_

Hunk waved happily to Lance’s Ma when she came close enough to differentiate her from the rest. She picked up her pace, speed walking like an absolute champ while Lance grabbed the nearest beach towel and tossed it over Keith. 

“Fuck off,” Keith snarled underneath it, about to tear it off.

“Keep it on,” Lance said, tugging it tightly over Keith’s head. Keith glowered up at him, past the shadow the towel cast over his already gloomy face.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“ _La—ance!_ ” Lance’s aunt sang, and Lance turned just in time to see her spin and produce a _hand-painted sign with his full name on it_. Lance went pale, and Keith tugged the towel further over his face.

“Never mind, I’m keeping this,” Keith said, and stayed thoroughly hidden throughout the entire time Lance’s family engulfed them with their excitement and festive cheer. The kids made little flags with Lance’s face on them (at least, that was what they were supposed to look like). 

Lance’s aunt came to squish Hunk’s cheeks and squeeze a plethora of giggles out of Pidge. It was alarming seeing them so giggly, and it didn’t last long before they got to their feet again and shook off the sensation. They went back to frowning, and pegged Lance with a murderous intent for bringing the family this way. 

Allura and Shiro introduced themselves properly to the McClains, and were the picture of maturity when it came to addressing all the adults there. Lance was stuck wrangling up the kids and sitting them all on the bleachers. Their competitors were already on the court, which meant Keith would eventually have to take off the beach towel.

The instant the towel came off, Lance’s mom was on the (figurative) ball. “Lance! Is that your partner?”

Keith grimaced, Lance flinched, and they both thought the exact same thing: _Partner?_ Lance felt the intense need to grab them each a matching pair of cowboy boots. Lance gestured vaguely to Keith, feebly, as if begging his Ma to retract her statement. She continued to stare intently, clasping her hands in front of her. She lifted her eyebrows, and looked sharply to Keith, and back to Lance.

“Uh… partner?” Lance said.

“Your teammate.”

Lance and Keith let out a relieved sigh, and Lance was so relieved he burst out laughing, and clapped Keith on the shoulder. Keith elbowed him in warning. 

“Oh! Right, yeah, this is Keith. And we gotta get… to it,” Lance said, pointing off to the court. He slid a bit closer to it until his Ma dropped the subject and freed them from the awkwardness. Keith accepted a stiff handshake from her, though.

Lance’s heart was still fluttering in his chest trying to escape by the time the set started. He couldn’t quite escape the feeling of being _watched_ , which was exactly the case. The fact that his family was out there screaming his name made him a little weak at the knees, and wound up missing his first spike—completely. There was at least a foot of air between his hand and the ball before it dropped straight into the sand, and rolled to Keith’s feet.

“ _Lance_ , oh my God, you totally had that,” Keith seethed from beside the net. “Just set let me save the damn ball next time.”

“Sorry,” Lance moaned, shoulders slumping. 

They relinquished the ball and backed up to save the next server (which, of course, Lance fucked up because he just _knew_ Keith would yell at him again if he messed up). It certainly didn’t improve their outlooks, since now they were getting into the difficult opponents that cleared through the first few brackets just like they did. Their skillsets were above the opposing team, but with Lance’s family shoving him off his game, he could already feel the pitiful apologies from Shiro. It just made him cringe even more.

Keith dove across the sand, punting the ball up with a swift swing of one arm stretched as far out as he could. His knuckles touched the sideline rope before he was on his feet again. Lance ducked under the ball and pitched it back up, thinking to himself, _Wow, that was a spot-on set_ , only to be followed by, _for Allura, maybe, not Keith_. 

Keith jumped, and Lance wilted, realizing that he set the ball just above Keith’s elbow—the normal height for a spiker. Keith wound up nudging the ball over the net, and it tipped over the edge and dropped, sending the player across from him scrambling forward to catch it. 

It rolled into the sand and scored Keith and Lance another point, though.

Keith turned on Lance, shoulders tense. 

“What the fuck was that?” he hissed. 

Lance put his hands up in surrender.

Keith kicked up the ball and spun it furiously between his palms as he stormed to the end line. Lance’s gaze followed him, only to stop short when he caught sight of the look on Shiro’s face in the bleachers.

Lance sighed as Keith served the ball, and knocked another point onto their scoreboard. He could pick out his Ma’s voice, and his aunt hollering, and tried to push it away—anywhere but the court. He couldn’t keep tripping over them through this game or the next. He had to be better than this if they were going to go against Lotor. Keith’s beef with Lotor felt personal now, and all Lance wanted to do was spike the ball in Lotor’s snotty face and be done with it.

He wiped his hands on his swim trunks and looked over at Keith. Keith’s shoulders were tense, eyes sharp and focused. Lance wished he had that amount of self-control to ignore the stands and the people around them. 

As the opposite side fetched the ball to pass over to Keith, Lance tried to calm down long enough to stop his hands from sweating. 

Something crashed onto both of his shoulders.

“I’m not ready to die!” Lance shrieked, flinging his arms out and about before swinging around with karate-hands up. Keith clapped his hands onto Lance’s shoulders again, forcing Lance to relax and not accept death.

Keith looked him in the eye, and Lance lowered his hands down. They stared at one another until Keith gave him a good, hardy shake. The volleyball hit the backs of Lance’s ankles. 

“You’re supposed to be looking at _me_ right now—not them,” Keith said. “Focus on _me_. You’ve never had an issue checking out my ass before.”

Lance blinked, startled. The heat of the sun suddenly felt scorching, and he realized that it was burning his shoulders where Keith was now shaking him again. “O-Okay. Focus on you. Got it,” Lance said. They left the pep talk with curt nods before turning away. Lance picked up the volleyball and tossed it to Keith, who caught it with one hand and spun it expertly to his opposite hand. 

_Focus on Keith—that shouldn’t be too hard_ , Lance thought. His grin returned bit by bit until the tension faded, and he was back in the zone of doing everything he could to make Keith proud.

Keith saved the return ball and shouted for Lance a second later. 

Lance was already there, bracing the ball over his head, squinting in the sunlight. He pushed the ball up, arcing it to the net where Keith raced forward and soared to meet it. Lance’s eyes were on Keith, watching the rush air pulling at Keith’s hair, and the muscles on his back tense as he readied to spike.

His legs bent as he ascended, kicking up a cloud of sand behind him.

When his palm made contact, the blast was deafening, and Lance marveled at Keith as their opponents scrambled to save the spike that landed a crater in the sand.

Lance punched his fists into the air, and ran to Keith, screaming in excitement. Keith accepted the hug reluctantly, but by the time Lance pulled away to wink at the crowd, he was smiling.

 

* * *

 

There were plenty of things Lance believed were fate. It took a few months to see it, but working for Shiro was definitely one of them. Being a bartender was suited for a person like him, a guy who could talk a mile a minute to strangers without breaking a sweat—talking with friends and acquaintances was another matter, and far more emotionally exhausting than he would have liked). Allura owning the café across the way was fate, and the pride he felt for seeing her dream come true was overwhelming. Owning a café of her own was something Allura talked about for as long as Lance knew her, from freshmen year until now.

Meeting Keith? That was another matter all on its own. Lance sought for it, and refused to passively let their chance slide. Keith was worth the effort, and where they landed was destiny. Fate was given to him—Keith moving to San Diego was fate, but destiny was something Lance made of that fate. 

Playing against Lotor, though? That was fate, and one that was both a blessing as a curse as they now glared at one another through the volleyball net. 

Acxa met Keith by the referee, which left Lance exposed to Lotor’s fury. Lotor’s jaw tensed as he stared Lance down. A sweat broke out on Lance’s forehead. He wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts, and Lotor’s gaze flickered down to them, only to look back up with a smirk.

_He’s not getting to me—he’s not getting to me_ , Lance chanted, but all the sweat said otherwise.

“Alright,” Keith’s voice spoke up, drawing Lance’s attention away from the raw, deadly energy emanating from Lotor. Keith looked out to the crowd. Shiro and Allura were starting their own match, cheered on by Pidge and Matt, so Hunk was there in the stands. He waved feebly, alone on his bench. Lance’s family wasn’t in sight—distracted by the ice cream stand down the beach. 

“Alright,” Lance repeated. “I was thinking we cou—”

Keith grabbed him by the hem of his shorts—which, for one, was risky and Lance was pretty sure if Keith looked down he’d see his junk—and kissed him. Lance’s momentary panic about his junk faded fast, and was replaced with the glee of kissing Keith again. He skimmed his hands around Keith’s waist, dragging his fingers across a snake tattoo that wrapped up his spine. 

“—do that, yeah cool,” Lance said, and giggled like a school girl. He blushed and waved his hand in front of Keith, who laughed and smacked his hands down. “M’sorry, it’s just—that was cute. I liked that.”

“Fuck off. Why’re you such a sap?” Keith demanded, smacking him in the arm. They laughed, knowing full well that they were just stoking the fire under Lotor’s feet right about now.

“Did we win the toss?” Lance asked, just as the referee passed Keith the ball.

“Hell yeah we did,” Keith said, winking at him. He stepped away as Lance’s family started to approach the bleachers again. “Eyes on me.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Lance said.

Keith smirked from the end line, and turned it onto Lotor and Acxa across the way. Lance stopped short at the sight of Acxa—decked out in purple spandex and a neon yellow sports bra. Her hair was gelled back in spikes, away from her face, and looking killer with her sharp, slim eyebrows. She pulled no punches, and went as far as to glare at Lance hard enough to pull a squeak of fear out of him.

When Keith tossed the ball in the air, the game was a go, and Lance was ready to fight.

Acxa lunged for the ball with a shout, swinging back over her shoulder after saving the ball. She bounced to her feet and sprinted to meet Lotor’s set to the net.

She leapt through the air, arms swinging forward and up. She slammed her hand down on the ball with a murderous cry. The explosion of the hit was only amplified by Keith’s save, popping the ball into the air. He shouted for Lance, who screamed, “Got it!” and propelled the ball forward for Keith’s attack.

Keith leapt up, and aimed straight for Lotor. He didn’t hold back. 

Lotor swung his arm up, catching the ball mere inches from his face. It slammed into the net, ricocheting off to where Acxa frantically bounced it up in a tall arc over the net. Keith screamed, “Got it!”, running to reach the ball. “Lance, _GO!_ ”

Lance’s heart rate sped up, the excitement of getting to spike enough to send his head spinning, and pulse thumping against his temple as he Naruto-ran for the net. He leapt into the air, and smacked the ball back to Acxa and Lotor. 

Acxa saved it.

Their volleys went like this through the entire first set—with unrelenting force, and unwillingness to let the ball hit the ground. It led to long, drawn out fusillades against one another in an attempt to break their defense. Lance was panting, chest burning as they neared the end of their first set. 

Twenty-twenty.

“We can’t keep giving the ball to Acxa,” Keith said as Lance spun the ball in his hands. They were on the end line. “Think you can serve it to Lotor?”

It was difficult, but not impossible. Acxa covered the entire back of the court, leaving the front to Lotor. A serve like that had to be high, and loop just over the net. Acxa wouldn’t be able to save something like that. Overhead serves wouldn’t cut it, especially with any force he or Keith would use…

“Yeah, I think I can do it,” Lance said. “It’s gonna be lame, though.”

“Underhand serves aren’t lame,” Keith sighed, rolling his eyes.

“They are too! You can’t be on a university team without having a solid overhand serve,” Lance hissed.

“We aren’t _on_ a university team!”

“We’re in the _Big Leagues_ ,” Lance hissed back, only to earn a smack in the arm for it. 

“Just do it. My underhands suck,” Keith said, exasperated. Lance promised he’d do his best, but he wasn’t going to be happy about it.

Keith went back to his position nearer the net. He gave Lance a thumbs up.

Lance released a shaky, uncertain breath. Lotor and Acxa were staring at him, waiting for whatever card he had under his sleeve this time. There weren’t many of them, and he hated to fall back on an underhand serve, but it would just have to do if they were going to single out Lotor for this win.

Lance pushed the ball into his left hand, and stepped back. He served before Acxa could think to move forward far enough to catch the ball loping over the net, and falling just in Lotor’s path. 

Just as expected, the slow speed made them both clunky with their feet, unsure when the ball was going to land or where. Lotor barely reached the ball fast enough to just nudge it, and it fell to the side. 

Lance leapt in excitement, and shimmied his shoulders in a little festive, celebratory dance.Just one more point, and this set would be done for.

Lotor flung the ball under the net, towards Lance. Lance popped it up with his foot and winked at Lotor, who looked about ready to growl and tear the net down. All four of them were flustered, red from the sun, and wrathful. This time, though? This time Lance was ready to deal damage with serves meant for middle-schoolers.

Lance pitched the ball up in a slow, high arc. Its shadow passed over Keith on its way over the net, and Acxa was fast enough to get under it. The speed was torturous, though, and had her second-guessing her placement. She bumped it, but the angle was off, and sent the ball past Lotor, towards the referee who blew the whistle when the ball hit the ground.

Lance froze, no more than one step away from the end line. Keith spun back to look at him, and let out a triumphant cry. He threw his arms up and came at Lance, tackling him for the first time that entire tournament. If Lance wasn’t on fire before, he was on fire now. Keith squeezed him around the waist and hefted him in the air. Lance wrapped his arms around Keith’s head and patted him on the shoulder. 

“Hey, buddy, we’ve still got another set.”

“I know. Just give me this,” Keith said, voice muffled in Lance’s chest. Lance smiled, looking eagerly to Hunk, who gave him two thumbs up. His aunt did the same when Lance looked at her, and all he could do was roll his eyes.

In the break between sets, Lance and Keith chugged two water bottles. Keith reapplied his sunscreen, and Lance wouldn’t have put any on had his Ma not stomped over and slapped some onto his exposed shoulders.

“Ouchie!” Lance whined.

“It wouldn’t hurt if you put some on before,” she said, rubbing it in roughly so Lance could feel the burn setting in. “Learn a thing or two from your partner.”

She squirted out a handful of sunscreen and slapped it onto Lance’s back. He winced and caught Keith’s eye. He flashed finger-guns at him and mouthed the word, “Partner.” He was certain Keith was about to murder him, but they had another set to get through before then.

The break only managed to let Lance’s exhaustion set in. His legs and feet burned from overexertion. The after burn of intense cardio had him rubbing at his chest as he walked back onto the court. Keith smacked him on the back, just to rub it in. Lance grimaced even though he couldn’t see the faint handprint now on his back.

Lotor and Acxa claimed the first serve, and so Lance and Keith readied for battle on their side of the court. 

After the first match, and with the break in between, the speed at which they volleyed was slowed. The length of their constant back-and-forth gave them enough time for Allura and Shiro to wrap up their match and come to view the second half of Lance and Keith’s. Lance looked to the stands after Keith spiked them another point and the ball back, and sighed in relief at the sight of them. He waved eagerly before accepting the ball Keith passed to him. 

As embarrassing as it was to underhand serve in front of Allura, he managed it, and scored them another point. The scoreboard ticked to fifteen-seventeen. 

With another over-arching serve, Lance brought the score to fifteen-eighteen.

Acxa swore in frustration, shaking her hands out as she turned away from the net. Lotor tossed the ball back to Lance, who popped it up with a wink just to piss him off. Lotor balled his fists up, sneering at him.

Acxa managed to save the next serve, but as Lotor set her up for a spike, Keith and Lance readied for the impact. Brutal drills with Keith made it easy for Lance to save the ball, bumping it to Keith, who set it up expertly for Lance. He Naruto-ran for the net, and lunged up, popping the ball off of Lotor’s fingertips so that it soared wildly to the back of the court. Acxa skidded in the sand to kick it up, but missed it by half a foot.

The exhaustion was overwhelming. They became sluggish, but no less determined to fight. The volleys went like this for another three rounds until the ball was with Lotor on the end line.

Seventeen-twenty.

He tossed the ball up, striding forward with purpose. He launched the ball over the net to where Keith charged towards it, and jumped in time to catch it with one arm extended. He punted it up to Lance, who passed it back to where Keith was near the end line. The back row attack allowed Keith to stride forward without jumping, and swing the ball back to them with force that had the hit resonating across all courts. Lance beamed as the ball skimmed the top of the net, and tipped away from Acxa. She scrambled for it, passing it back to Lotor, who frantically set it a bit too far out of her range. The ball hit the net and ricocheted back into the sand.

The referee signaled the end of the match.

The crowd was on their feet, screaming with excitement. Lance’s jaw dropped, and he turned to Keith, who looked equally stunned to have defeated Acxa and Lotor. Lance’s family was on the court in a matter of seconds, dragging Lance off the field with excited cheers and whoops of ecstatic energy.

Keith met them, heading to Shiro and Allura, who wrangled him into a fierce hug. “I’m so proud of you!” Allura sobbed, rubbing Keith’s sweaty hair. 

Keith laughed, shaking her off. 

People began clearing the stands by the time Lance’s family relinquished him to Hunk, who swung him up into the air in a tight, affectionate hug. Lance giggled, dizzy from the adrenaline and exhaustion.

“You did it, bud!” he shouted, swinging Lance to and fro.

“Alright, alright, getting dizzy there,” Lance said, laughing nervously as Hunk set him down.

He caught sight of Keith facing Shiro and Allura over by the metal bleachers. Lance was delirious from the heat, the athletics, the need to beat Lotor and Acxa, but he was so, _so_ thrilled that he did it all with Keith.

He ran forward, yelling, “We fucking did it, dude!” and Keith barely got the chance to turn round before Lance was smacking his ass as hard as he possibly could and—

Keith screamed, swore, and swung his elbow up to the first thing he could find—Lance’s chest.

The air left his lungs in an instant as he tripped backwards and fell into the bleachers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... suddenly had motivation yesterday. And cranked out the rest of the fic today. I'll post again tomorrow :O


	16. hotpot date

It felt like Lance blinked without blinking. The world went dark, and in the next moment, that aching, dizzying sensation was due to the fact that he was suddenly flat on the ground. Above him there were figures silhouetted in godly light shining down from the Heavens. It was so blinding that he squinted and said, “Shit why is the sun so bright…? Wha happened—?”

His head felt like a magnet was heaving through the back of his skull when he tried to sit up. Someone pushed him down by the shoulders and said, “Lay down. You hit your head pretty hard.”

“Shiro—?”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to hit him _that_ hard,” a familiar voice said. _Keith_. Wait—hit _him_? What reason would Keith have for hitting…

Oh.

Shit, well, this wasn’t how he expected slapping Keith’s ass to go.

He recognized the sound of the referee nearby, and his Ma screaming as she realized what happened. When she yelled his name, he winced, reaching for the back of his head.

“Holy shit, that hurt,” he moaned, rubbing a hand over his eyes to block out the sun. His brain sloshed against his skull as his Ma came to kneel beside him.

“I swear it was an accident—” Keith started, but she waved him off frantically in favor of helping Lance to sit against the bleacher he just smashed his head into. 

Lance blinked his eyes open, squinting hard. The pain condensed behind his eyes, and seemed to weigh on every part of his skull until his Ma pulled out her phone and flickered her flashlight between his eyes. He tried to close them, but she forced him to keep looking at her.

“Concussion?” Shiro said, and Allura turned away with her hands in her hair.

“ _Concussion?_ ” Lance squeaked, horrified. “No, it’s just a headache, I swear—”

“Don’t worry—this happens to people all the time,” his Ma reassured him, shaking her head. “I’ll drive you to the hospital. Tell the referee we don’t need a nurse, and that he can’t play another match,” she said to Keith, whose wide, guilty eyes flickered from her to Lance and back again. “Hun, don’t worry. I don’t blame you.”

“O-Okay. I’ll be right back,” Keith said, and hurried away to catch the referee. 

“No, I can play,” Lance insisted, trying to sit up, but the world tilted to the side and he slipped onto the sand again. His Ma held him close and helped lift him to his feet. 

Allura looked glassy-eyed. “Oh, hun, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I really wanted to—Oh, God—”

“It’s fine, honest,” Lance said, and would have shook his head if it didn’t feel like his brain was soup. “We’ll… play together another time.”

She nodded, tearful as she patted her hand on his hair. Hunk came to take over Lance’s Ma’s task of holding Lance up. Each step put more pressure on Lance’s head until he groaned and stopped walking. He watched his Ma talk to the others, organizing the carpool situation while she claims one car to take care of Lance.

He dreaded the car ride to the hospital. 

Allura gathered up his things from where his bag was next to Keith’s duffle. She jogged over across the court to meet with Hunk. “Here’s his things. Also, sunglasses.” She plucked them off the top of her head and stuck them over Lance’s eyes. “Call me if you need anything—a ride or whatever.”

“Okay, I will.”

“Promise me,” she insisted.

“Okay. Okay, I promise I will call you if I need anything,” he said, tired. “I’ll be fine.”

He may have been fine, but he felt terrible, though. So much for winning the tournament. Their hopes might not have been on that anymore, but losing by forfeit felt like failure to Lance. Losing on their own terms would have been ideal, but after walking this distance, Lance couldn’t even think about jumping for a spike _or_ a serve.

Allura left, looking almost as guilty as Keith did when he returned from talking with the referee.

“Looks like Allura and Shiro won the tournament after all,” he sighed, pushing a hand over his eyes. “ _God_ , I’m such an idiot.”

“I slapped your ass! That was a reasonable response.”

“To give you a concussion?” Keith said. Lance shrugged, and Hunk raised an eyebrow.

“So maybe the concussion wasn’t deserved… necessarily…” Hunk started, “but it’s not your fault Lance decided to slap your butt.”

Lance didn’t argue with that. He shrugged again, and Keith seemed to deflate. He suddenly looked smaller, and less-intimidating than his tattoos suggested. “Dude, don’t feel bad about it,” Lance muttered, kicking the sand a little.

“We won and I gave you a concussion,” Keith said, pouting. 

“Yeah, just means you owe me a hotpot date,” Lance said, and grinned when Keith blushed. Hunk wiggled his shoulders. “And an ass tattoo.”

“I’m not tattooing your ass!” Keith cried, exasperatedly. Instantly they all flinched, realizing that Lance’s family was nearby.

“Shit, I hope his Ma didn’t hear that,” Hunk said, grimacing. Keith covered his face, ashamed. 

Lance reached over and thumped Keith on the shoulder. “I’ll text you when I’m back home,” he said. “Ma’s probably gonna force bedrest on me for a solid day or two, but we should hang anyways.”

“I don’t want to piss your mother off,” Keith huffed. 

“You won’t—not if we just… stay in and rewatch _Jessica Jones_ ,” Lance said. Keith’s eyes widened, as if startled by the accusation that Lance still wanted him around. 

Just then, Lance’s Ma called for Hunk to bring Lance over. Keith’s entire face was red by the time Lance winked at him—though it was more of a grimace than anything. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, and left Keith in a flustering, embarrassed mess.

He watched Lance walk off surrounded by his relatives, and escorted by Hunk. Keith let out a shuddering breath, trying to shake off the guilt of hurting Lance like that. He never had a concussion before, but he was starting to feel a headache coming on just worrying about how Lance must feel.

He watched someone approach from beside him, and glanced sparingly to see who it was. He groaned when he realized that it was his ex waiting for a post-match chat. After a second debating just running off, Keith turned to him, arms crossed.

“What? You still wanna talk?” Keith said, frustrated.

Lotor raised his hands in surrender. “Look, I just wanted to congratulate you on the win. I’m not a complete asshole, remember?” 

Keith did remember, and the guilt resurfaced. After five years of learning how genuine and kind Lotor was, being stabbed in the back with the cheating knife was more of a surprise than anything. And, after everything with Lance, it was hard to believe that Lotor could ever go back to being the good guy.

“Right. Sorry,” Keith huffed, looking down at his feet. “I’m just…”

“Angry, I get it,” Lotor said, hands on his hips. He glanced away, squinting at the water, and then off to where Lance walked away. “He… seems like a good guy.”

“Yeah, and I just gave him a concussion. Whole lotta good that must be doing me,” Keith sighed. “He’s already over it. I guess.”

“But you aren’t,” Lotor said. “You can’t keep beating yourself up over shit, Keith. And I just… I hope you realize that you weren’t the reason I slept with Acxa in the first place. It was nothing you did.”

“It is, though!” he cried, annoyed. When his voice raised, he looked to Shiro, and flinched. No need to attract attention. The weight on his chest was just starting to lift, and he realized it as soon as he saw Shiro laughing at something Allura said. “I’m… _boring_. I didn’t used to be, but I am now.”

“You’re never boring,” Lotor insisted, shaking his head. “You’ve never _been_ boring. And even if you are, then I’d say I like boring. I liked being with you. It’s just fucked up that _I_ fucked everything up. I just wanted to apologize for putting you through that.”

Keith sighed, and the dull look on his face was enough to deter Lotor. Today was not the day that Keith could forgive Lotor, or even consider reconciliation. Lotor retracted every offer of it by taking a step back. 

“Anyways—I’m leaving tomorrow. So… maybe I’ll see you around. Maybe I won’t,” he said, looking off to where Acxa sat on the bleachers chugging water. She stopped to look at them, and then over to where her girl friend was jogging over across the court. As she stood to greet the woman, Lotor turned back to Keith. “I hope you and Lance work out.”

“Thanks,” he said reflexively, and winced as soon as Lotor turned to jog away.

 

* * *

 

Bedrest meant not working for a few days, and hanging out with Keith whenever his Nunchi clients didn’t need him. Since Lance never left the apartment, he gave his keys to Keith, who awkwardly let himself in the first day, and left the next morning and locked the door behind him. Just those simple actions meant the world to Keith, and he didn’t realize it until he walked out of Lance’s apartment building for a run like it was his home.

He returned, smiling, and more relaxed after exerting the frustration of being the cause of Lance’s quarantine. Lance was in the dark of his bedroom, as asleep as he could be with a raging headache. When Keith stepped in and pulled off his sweaty socks and shirt, Lance reached feebly for him.

“Why is my skull like egg shells?” he asked weakly.

“Like Easter egg shells?”

“Yeah…”

“Because there’s nothing inside of it,” Keith whispered, and laughed when Lance tried, tiredly, to hit him. “I’m gonna shower. Do you need anything?”

Lance pouted, eyes closed. “Water, maybe?”

Keith fetched his water bottle and headed back to the kitchen. He left the bedroom door open, and if he leaned over just so, he could see Lance watching him from the bed, eyes half-closed. Lance smiled sleepily, and it was all Keith could do to keep from blushing and giggling like every time he picked Lance up off his feet, and Lance giggled like a fiend.

When Keith returned with the water, Lance hummed his thanks before saying, “Can we get hotpot today?”

“No, we’re staying in.”

“But we can’t even watch _Jessica Jones_ ,” Lance moaned. They had tried the previous night, but it only spawned a headache that Lance couldn’t ignore. So watching shows was no longer an option, and using his phone caused just as much suffering. “If we get hotpot, I’ll be a good boy.”

Keith winced. “Please don’t ever say that again.”

“I’ll be a _good boy_.”

“Okay, I’m leaving, and I’m going to take a shower to cleanse myself of your stupid fucking idiot language,” Keith said, and flicked his hands away as if to shed the words from his person.

The time it took for Keith to shower was just long enough for him to decide that today would be the day for hotpot. It was overcast when he went out for his jog, and was still cloudy when he emerged from the shower, squeaky clean. Using Lance’s bathroom felt comfortable now after all the time he spent in Lance’s room, as did crawling back onto Lance’s bed to nap through the rest of the morning. He tugged an arm underneath his pillow, and wrapped the other around Lance’s waist. He nestled in closer, and let Lance tangle their legs together. 

This was an excellent way to spend a lazy morning.

Keith settled in for another two hours until his stomach growled in protest. He laid his hand over his abdomen, and saw Lance look down at it. “Maybe we should get up,” Lance suggested.

“Agreed.”

Keith threw the blankets off the both of them, and readied for the day. Lance was slower to comply, and stuck on a pair of sunglasses before leaving the bedroom. Hunk and Shay were in the wide, open living room. The moment they were out, though, Shay hurried up and tugged the blinds over the windows.

“Keith and I are gonna head out,” Lance said.

“No way, nuh-uh, your mom will murder me if I let you set foot out that door,” Hunk said, but Lance was already heading for it. Keith held up Lance’s keys and shook them.

“I’ll take care of him. His mother doesn’t need to know,” Keith said, and waved farewell to them on his way out after Lance.

Due to Lance’s handicap, Keith let the handholding slide and played his compliance off as guilt-fed obligation. Lance thoroughly exploited Keith’s weakness, and beamed despite the ache behind his eyes. They walked across Lance’s campus quietly, so as to avoid overstimulating Lance’s brain. Keith didn’t mind the silence, because he wasn’t sure if he could stand to hear Lance’s cute comments about the hand-holding.

They arrived at the bus stop they stood at the other morning and crossed the street at the next available lull in traffic. Lance nudged his sunglasses higher as they walked beneath the awnings, and Keith held the door open for him. Once sat at a table as far from the windows as possible, Lance pushed his sunglasses up—it caused his hair to stick up on end. 

Keith took Lance’s menu from him and settled on the ordering since the doctor (and Lance’s mother) recommended that Lance avoid reading in general. Lance looked around the restaurant, and rubbed his hands over the heat panels on their table.

“Alright, so…” Keith hummed, flipping the page. “Do you like seafood?”

“Yeah, sorta.”

“Mushrooms?”

“ _No_ thank you,” Lance said, crossing his fingers as if to ward away the devil. “Can we get, like… noodles in it? _Ooh!_ And dumplings?”

“Yeah, if you plan on having a food baby for the next decade,” Keith scoffed. “We’ll get some scallion pancakes if you’re up for it.”

“Aw, but noodles. Slurp slurp.”

“Shut the fuck up and let me deal with this,” Keith snarled, grabbing the pencil the waiter left for him, and viciously checked off all the fields that caught his eye. They determined that they both had a spicy palate, which seemed to make Lance glow with pride. Evidently that was a qualification for being a part of the McClain extended family.

Keith passed his menu off to the waiter as Lance said, “I’ve never had lamb before. Is it good?”

“Tastes like chicken to me,” Keith said, shrugging. “You’ll like it.”

“Ooh, you sound so sure of yourself. How well do you _actually_ know me, Kogane?” Lance hummed, propping his chin up as he half-lidded his eyes and stared Keith down. 

Keith bristled, turning pink at the ears. “I-I don’t! I don’t know, it’s just a classic of course you’ll like it,” he stammered. “Stop looking at me like that!”

The waiter brought a massive, divided pot over and placed it on the center panel nearer the wall. Peppers floated on the water’s surface, and Lance could smell the acidity wafting up from it. He hummed in content, and preened at the sight of all the toppings being set in a massive tray beside the panel. Keith raised an eyebrow at him, and laughed at the sight of Lance’s astonishment. 

Once the waiter left, Lance tugged one of the trays closer. “So… what? We dump it all in?”

“Not all at once,” Keith said, slapping his hand away. “We have to get our sauce first.”

“What, why? Isn’t this enough? Oh—Okay, you’re getting up. Alright, let’s go,” Lance said, hurrying after Keith to the sauce bar. 

Keith expertly scooped sesame sauce into a bowl and topped it with chives. He handed it off to Lance and poured another smaller bowl of varying colors. Lance followed him back to the table where they pushed aside trays to make room for the sauce. Keith plucked up a pair of chopsticks and snapped them at Lance.

“Alright,” he started, and Lance straightened as if preparing for class. “Here’s how it goes: not everything at once. Meat first, then potatoes, and corn.”

“All at once, you said?” Lance said, and Keith glared him down. “Right, sorry. I was kidding, gosh.”

Keith snapped his chopsticks at Lance again before plucking up the meat tray and picking rolls of beef and lamb to one half of the pot. Lance poked them in the water and nudged them under, sloshing the peppers around. Keith boiled the ends of his chopsticks before moving on to the next dish. Lance helped Keith pick through the potato slices and dunked them under. Keith glances up long enough to see Lance’s eyes widen, marveled by this new, exciting endeavor. He smiled despite himself.

“Are you laughing at me? You’re totally laughing at me,” Lance moaned.

“Sorry,” Keith said, pushing the back of his hand against his mouth. His attempt to cover it up failed. “You just—I don’t know.”

“What? Do I look _cute_?” Lance cooed, shimmying his shoulders.

“Sh-shut up!” Keith squeaked, shaking his head.

“Aw, cute!”

“ _Lance!_ ” he hissed, and Lance dissolved into a fit of giggles.

Lance plopped a daikon radish into the mix, grinning like the monster he was. “Best date ever,” he said, and Keith opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He pursed his lips together to keep from smiling as he helped scoop in another radish when it slipped from Lance’s chopsticks.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said quietly, and shared a soft, knowing smile with Lance afterwards.

They drank yogurt together, clinking their glasses together, and silently celebrated the fact that destiny made this happen. There wasn’t anything accidental about it.

 

* * *

 

Near the end of the week, Lance was back to work—shorter hours, yes, but finally on his feet again. He helped out at the start of the rush, and was forced out of the bar by the time things _really_ picked up.

He pouted out back, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt coverup. He checked the time, and realized that Keith wouldn’t even be around—work and all that. After fiddling out in the summer night a while longer, he walked to Shiro’s bus stop and took the first bus to Nunchi. 

It took half an hour, and when he arrived, it was nine at night and the street was bustling. He squinted against the neon lights, and the blue glow around Nunchi’s windows. He could see inside the dim foyer area, and caught Nyma’s attention. She waved eagerly to him, and ushered him in. 

The bell chimed over his head. 

“Hey! I didn’t think you had your appointment today,” she said, checking her computer.

“Nah, I’m just bored. I’m sick of sitting around,” he confessed, and gently thumped his finger on his head. “You know, after that whole…”

“Yeah, Keith told me about it,” she said, smiling. “He also told me you two are dating now.”

Lance must have sprouted heart emojis out of his ears because Nyma laughed at his reaction. He flushed, and couldn’t manage to contain his smile. “Really?! He said that!”

“Yeah, hun. You’re too cute,” she said, giggling. “He’s got another twenty minutes left on this client, but he’s free for cleanup after that. You can see him then.”

“O-Okay,” Lance said, and went to the couches to sit among the other waiting clients. He felt dazed, stunned, hit upside the head with a pillow filled with feathers and heart-shaped sequence. He didn’t think Keith would say something like that to people. From the few times they discussed it, Keith hadn’t even told Shiro, as if waiting for everyone else to pick up on it instead of outright telling them. He was passive-aggressive that way, which made the realization that Nyma _knew_ and was _told this knowledge_ all the more incredible.

When the curtain pushed aside next, it was Keith and his client walking out to meet at Nyma’s desk. Keith was focusing on getting the client set up with Nyma before turning around and glancing momentarily at the couches. He caught sight of Lance there, and jumped a little in surprise. 

“Lance! What are you doing here?” he asked as Lance leapt up and met him at the curtain.

“I was bored,” he said. “And I wanted to see you.”

Keith flustered, stammered, and eventually tugged Lance through the curtain. He leaned back out to tell his next client that he just needed to clean up his station and that he’d be out again for her. 

Lance trailed after Keith to his station, and grinned when Keith had to pass him, brushing his hand over Lance’s hip on the way. “How’s work?” Lance asked.

“Busy,” he confessed, pulling Lance over to his work station. He soothed his thumbs over Lance’s wrists, and sent butterflies fluttering through his veins. “Love the gnarly sweatshirt.”

“Thanks. Chilly out,” he confessed, and beamed when Keith looked back up to his eyes with a soft smile. 

They weren’t in private, but they were distracted enough to manage a single, slow kiss before Keith’s coworker hooted from the station beside them. “I’m here for this entertainment!” she sang, and laughed when Keith flipped her off, lips still latched onto Lance’s.

Lance pulled back and pecked Keith’s cheek once more. “You clean up,” he said, and Keith closed his eyes with a sad, sad sigh. “I’ll hang out until you’re done.”

“Then I’ll take an hour to clean up.”

“You have a client waiting,” Lance laughed, but Keith didn’t care. He wasted his cleanup time by wandering over to the visitor chair Lance claimed, and stopped to talk about Lance’s day until his cleanup timer went off, and he was far from finishing his work.

Lance didn’t seem to care after all. Besides, he preferred kissing Keith over relinquishing him back to his work. Letting Keith get back to work meant having to go home without him, and that just wouldn’t do.

When Keith finished cleaning his tools, he pulled his stool up beside Lance and braced his hands on the padded seat between his legs. “Hey—I gotta go home tonight since I’ve got two more appointments.”

“Okay,” Lance said, even though he yearned to ask to go with him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, though,” he promised. “I’ll be here at noon if you wanna come in early.”

“Sure! Yeah, I’ll see you then,” Lance said, and pushed himself up out of his chair. Keith caught him by the wrist again, and stayed still until Lance asked him what it was. 

“Just… text me when you get back, alright?” he said, and Lance promised he would. Keith lowered his hand and watched Lance walk off back to the foyer. Eventually he’d have to get up and get back to work, but he waited until Lance was gone to do so. They’d see each other tomorrow anyways.

He was looking forward to it more and more as each minute went by, so when noon rolled around the next day, Keith was struggling to hold back his excitement. It was the day he’d finally be able to ink Lance’s beautiful back with the design they were both thrilled about.

As expected, Lance showed up early for his appointment as Keith was getting his station ready. He let himself into the back with Nyma’s permission, and tore off his shirt before he even passed the visitor chair. Keith rolled his eyes, snapping on a pair of sanitary gloves.

“Ink me up, Scotty,” Lance said, flopping belly-first onto the table (thankfully Keith had already wiped it down).

“Not quite sure if that reference applies here,” Keith said.

“Whatever. Just get on with it—I’m so ready.”

“Shouldn’t we talk about it a bit first?” he said, and Lance stared him down until he relented. “Right. Okay, so upper-spine, blow the usual t-shirt collar.”

“Bingo, baby.”

“Oh my God, Lance, I can’t do this if you’re going to tease me the whole time,” Keith sighed, because his heart really couldn’t take it.

“Right! Right, sorry. I’ll be good,” Lance said, nestling his cheek on his hands. He whispered against them, “A good boy,” which prompted an annoyed, “ _Fuck_ ,” from Keith as he wheeled his equipment over, and tugged out the transparency from the folder on his lap.

Keith penciled the tattoo in after wiping down Lance’s skin. He visually measured the dead-center between Lance’s shoulder blades, marked the circumference of the design, and went from there. Lance hummed random songs under his breath as Keith worked, and traced his fingers around the table padding once Keith got around to starting up his tattoo gun. He tensed at the sound, suddenly aware of how close it was to his skin, and how soon it’d be drilling tiny holes into his back. 

Keith soothed his thumb over the back of Lance’s neck—cool and calm. “Relax—I’ll start in the less painful spots. Once we get to your spine I’ll let you know.”

“Okay. Okay, yeah, this is fine. I’m fine,” Lance said, swallowing hard. “Do it. I’m ready.”

“Dude, relax.”

“I am relaxed!” Lance said, but his voice-crack said otherwise.

Keith dragged his thumb down Lance’s neck, sending a shiver up his back and to his shoulders where Keith massaged him gently. The tattoo gun was no longer running, and so Lance was solely focused on the sensation of Keith’s gloved hand over his shoulder. He relaxed into it, ignoring the way his brain melted at the thought of Keith’s sexy gloved hand (so what if he had a kink? People had those, right?). 

Keith dragged his hand back to where Lance had felt Keith’s pencil marking up his back. He tried to stay relaxed, and it seemed to work, because Keith started up the tattoo gun again and got to work.

It didn’t hurt all that much at first. In fact, it was a kind of… pleasant, happy feeling. Like tickling, but less torturous. Like a massage, but he definitely couldn’t fall asleep to the feeling of it. He closed his eyes, though, and stayed as still as possible until Keith murmured that he’d be going over Lance’s spine. And _God_ , did that sting like a bitch. Like Zeus decided to fuck up Lance’s day and pierce him a thousand times in the fucking spine. He _really_ wasn’t about to let a tattoo gun end his life— _no thank you_.

“Whoa, whoa, ow. _Ah-how_ , no, fuck, that hurts,” Lance hissed, and Keith instantly pulled the gun off because Lance was trying to sit up.

“Dude, c’mon, people die everyday and you’re gonna complain about a fucking needle in your spine?” Keith said, spinning forward on his chair to meet Lance’s eyes. Lance pouted at him. “Lay the fuck down and take it.”

“Geez, romance me first, will ya?” Lance moaned, but flopped back down anyways.

Keith went back to work, and Lance thought about people being shot and tortured to death so that the tattoo gun seemed like a pinch instead of Zeus’ wrath. It didn’t help much, but it got him through the worst of it, and the sensation of his skin swelling red around the ink.

Keith swiped a towel over the fresh ink and cleaned up around the tattoo once all was said and done.

“Alright. It looks good as is. Where’s your phone?” Keith asked, and Lance pointed over to his discarded shirt in the corner. 

He rolled over to fetch it, and came back to take a picture of the tattoo. He held the phone out in front of Lance so that he cold see it, and Lance squealed, lunging up fast enough to give himself a head-rush. He pressed his hand to his head, still his swimming brain, and stared, awestruck, at the tattoo. 

“ _Dude_ , oh my God, I love it,” he said, and looked up to find Keith looking _nervous_ for once. “Honestly, this is the greatest fucking thing.”

“Really? You like it?” Keith said, his concern breaking, if only a little. “I’m… glad you like it.”

“Get over here! God, this is so cool!” Lance cried, leaping to encase Keith in a hug. Keith wrapped his arms around Lance’s neck, and smiled against his hair. Lance swung them back and forth, laughing, before hurrying over to the floor length mirror to try and see it for himself. 

Keith watched Lance twist around, chin over his shoulder. He stretched a hand back to tug at the skin until Keith swatted his hands away, warning him to leave it be for a while until the scabs healed. Lance squealed some more, tackled Keith again, and wound up pushing him into the table. Keith fell back against it, cursing, and laughed when Lance pinned him against it, hands on either side of Keith’s face. He laughed, nestling his nose against Keith’s. They breathed the same air for a moment before Lance closed the gap, body still humming from the delight of getting a custom Keith tattoo.

And Keith rolled with it because Lance was by far the best part of San Diego. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know when I'll be writing another fic D: Life came and kicked me in the heart, so I'll be recovering from that this week (rip the family dog, may she rest in peace). 
> 
> You can subscribe to me on here to know when I post again, and I always post a first-chapter advert on [Tumblr](http://girlskylark.tumblr.com/). I've been using [Twitter](https://twitter.com/girlskylark) more frequently, too (I'll be posting pics tomorrow of my pupper if you wish to pay your respects).
> 
> Consider supporting me over on my Tumblr by clicking that cute lil purple button! Also, [Marci](http://llstarcasterll.tumblr.com/) is a lovely artist and posts stuff now and again. We collaborated on the whole fic idea and she drew the boys (you know the pic) in their Fightin' Gear (swim suits).


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